


Maybe I'm Paying for the Things I've Done

by tuz



Category: Naruto
Genre: Found Family, Homemaking, Intrigue, M/M, Other, Politics, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 44,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27771346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuz/pseuds/tuz
Summary: After five years away from Konoha, a year in prison, and four months taking C ranked missions Sasuke gets an intriguing job offer from Yamanaka Ino of all people. She wants him to help hunt down the Akatsuki, a shadow village and terrorist organization trying to take the jinchuriki for an unknown purpose. All the while Sasuke has to rebuild the Uchiha Clan after the massacre and try desperately to stop his budding feelings toward Hatake Kakashi, his former teacher and future Hokage.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 57
Kudos: 95





	1. "I am letting this room/and everything in it/stand for my ideas about love/ and its difficulties" Li-Young Lee

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In Good Company](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084115) by [weialala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weialala/pseuds/weialala). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've written fics before but not nearly as detailed, planned out, or long(also I deleted them). I don't own any of the characters obviously. I wrote this fic because while reading so many Naruto fics I kept thinking that Kakashi/Sasuke was a tragically underwritten pairing and I wanted to fix it.  
> This fic is inspired by the Sharingan Rising series because the entire time of reading the most incredible fic ever, I kept thinking it would be better if it was Kakashi/Sasuke instead, which was frustrating like you wouldn't believe. I have sort of an idea of how I want this to go but I will appreciate constructive criticism and edits that y'all make. I hope this is something that people like and I hope this goes well.  
> Special thanks to my platonic soulmate who kept me hyped during this process and provided valuable feedback on my work. Please comment! I would appreciate any and all feedback. Also the title of the fic is taken from an Ellie Goulding song and the chapter title is from a poem. If you notice any typos or mistakes feel free to point them out. I might keep changing little things so there maybe "false" updates, sorry this is just my first time doing this long term.  
> some things to know:  
> Sasuke is 19 at the start of this fic, Kakashi is 30  
> People's ages might be different in order for things to make more sense.

The thing is, Sasuke was the second born child.

He was never raised to be an heir. So, while Itachi had started building his Katon repertoire and training in kenjutsu at the tender age of five, Sasuke was instead guided to the Naka Shrine's stone steps. His maternal grandmother-nanu- walked with him from his house all the way to the heart of the Uchiha compound, where the Shrine stood. Sasuke doesn't remember a lot about his nanu, but he remembers the way she walked. Slightly hunched over, bowing to her age with grace, taking slow, sure steps to wherever her destination may be. She wore simple clothes, white more often than not after her husband had died when she was just 25 years old, leaving her a widow during the Second Shinobi World War. She wore no jewelry, not even wedding rings. Sasuke remembers her holding him when he was little, her loud, hoarse voice laughing while she would lift him into her arms. Her hugs had been all-encompassing and warm, her sun-weathered skin wrinkled, her eyes twinkling in the light of day.

When they had reached the compound, a man had come out, just as old as nanu, if not older. They had similar skin tones, brown butter and toffee, warm and a lifetime etched into every wrinkle on their face and hands.

"Sasuke, this is my older brother Tamaki." Sasuke had gasped at the revelation. His nanu had seven siblings, but most of them had died in the war; he had assumed that she didn't have any left.

"Hello, Sasuke," Tamaki said gently. He had lifted Sasuke up into his arm and balanced him on his hips and looked over to his sister and smiled, "This is my son, Ayako, and you just introduced him to the shrine now," teased Tamaki. He had looked at Sasuke, wide-eyed on his hips, and asked, "Do you remember me, Sasuke? We met when you were very little".

Sasuke, all of five years old, had been shy when he shook his head. Tamaki had hummed under his breath, glancing at his sister, Ayako. "Well, I'm your grandfather, so you can call me nana-abu."

The thing is, the Uchiha Clan had been from the south of Fire Country, from the long stretch of land above Tea Country, surrounded by the sea and the wild southern sun. Born from flame, they had risen from the old legends of the sea; they were once the greatest warriors of the Elemental Nations. They had migrated north and conquered land to the edge of Senju Territory, moving upwards and deeper into Fire Country, but still, they were from the south. They breathed fire with Katon Jutsu, and when the day was done, they would swim along the shores of their sandy beaches, running to the Kanashi Sea to soothe the wild lick of flames within them. They dove into the water as if they remembered the legends of old. As if they remembered their past lives as dragons, bursting from the deepest dark of the Kanashi Sea's hydrothermal vents, only to come to land and breath warmth into the forests and giving Fire Country its name.

They were people that lived close to each other and on top of each other. Houses filled to the brim with mothers and fathers, sons and daughters and cousins, wearing bright clothes that made their women look like a sunset on the sea. They made their houses with clay fired from their own mouths; there was no need for kilns in the Uchiha Clan. Under the shade of old, old, old trees, wild black hair would come tumbling from headscarves worn by women, and their sun-warmed hands were gentle over the crown of children's heads in greetings, kisses pressed against the cheeks of squirming babies and even grown men, the clan had been affectionate.

When they settled in Konoha, the clan had searched desperately for any and all signs of their southern homes within the northern forests. They couldn't leave a village they helped build and kept safe, but they wanted to bring their hearth fire into Konoha's woods. So, they did. They brought their food, their clothes, their spices, and their love of the sea was poured into the Naka River, their hearth fire given to their children for safekeeping, their grief shared among the elders with tears in their eyes even while they shared stories of joy and at a new home. A small empire that rose from the sea like a sunrise had wandered over to land and learned to breathe fire, and had finally made homes in the trees grown from the chakra of their once blood-enemies. Always moving, always looking forward, steeped in tradition but not breaking under them, the weight of the past was not theirs to carry.

Because the Uchiha had brought their southern ways to Konoha, Sasuke grew up calling his cousins his siblings. He grew up with women who were reserved in the face of the villagers, straight-backed and proud, but almost smothering with their affection within the compound. All his aunts and uncles treated him as their own son.

So, when Tamaki, his great-uncle, called Sasuke his son and asked Sasuke to call him Nana-Abu, he complied. He grew up the second son; his Katon was always weaker than Itachi's, his taijutsu ever weaker, still a little less smart, but he was never less loved.

The thing is, Sasuke grew up loved beyond all measure.

***

Sakura woke Sasuke up at around 4:30 in the morning for training. And Sakura being Sakura meant that she couldn't use a phone and call him like a normal person, and instead decided to show up at his house uninvited and break down his bedroom door with her fists and undirected rage.

"Wake the fuck up, Sasuke, we have training."

Sasuke groaned into his pillow and hiked up his blankets to shield his eyes from the light. _What the actual hell was wrong with his teammates_ , he wondered. Sakura had thankfully gotten over her crush on him, but she seemed determined to show Sasuke how much she had changed over the past five years by beating him up during their team training, as rare as they were.

"Why the fuck are you in my house."

"We have training in 30 minutes, dumbass," she repeated impatiently, attempting to rip off his blankets. Sasuke curled his hands tight over the fabric and prepared himself for a tug of war that he was most certainly going to lose.

"We have training whenever Kakashi shows up, which will be at around noon if we're lucky," he retorted. Sakura began dragging his blankets away from him, and he whimpered at the loss of warmth.

"Get up; we were told to be at the field by five in the morning, Sasuke."

"How the fuck did you even get in."

"I have a key."

He let go of the blankets and watched Sakura stumble back. "How do you have keys to my own house when I didn't give them to you," he demanded.

"I made a copy."

"You do know that's illegal, don't you?"

"So is going missing-nin, but that didn't stop you from doing it," she smirked. Sasuke's jaw dropped at that answer.

When Sasuke had been in prison after returning to Konoha, Sakura and Naruto had come to speak with him. He had been forced into chakra sealing handcuffs and prison garb like all the other criminals because that was what he was to Konoha. A criminal, a traitor, a missing-nin, the scorned scion of the Uchiha Clan set on destroying his ancestor’s legacy if nothing else. He sat in a room with a one-way mirror and waited for his two former teammates to take their seats in front of him. They had walked in holding each other's hands, and when they finally sat down with their hands on the table in front of them, Sasuke had unknowingly let out a breath he had been holding for five years.

Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke, together at last. No matter how hard Sasuke tried, he couldn't remember a single word said during that conversation. This is what he remembered instead:

  1. Sakura and Naruto each took one of his hands until they formed a ring inside the room.
  2. His own ragged breaths filling the silence of the room, holding his teammate's hands against his mouth, the only apology he could give.
  3. The way the lights glinted off of their bright hair and wet eyes
  4. The gaping maw caused by Kakashi's absence



They hadn't talked about Sasuke leaving them, and they hadn't spoken about Sasuke nearly killing both of them; they had held each other's silence regarding their past. So much history between the three of them that talking should have been easier, but it wasn't. They held each other's words in their hands, pressed them to beat their chests, and hoped that all their unspoken words would somehow stitch back together their broken hearts.

Sakura shifted her weight in front of him, "Too soon," she asked.

"No," he answered, grinning, "you're good."

She frowned, "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable-"

"You're good," he interrupted.

"We're good?"

"Yes." He had to be firm in this because, for all that Sakura had changed, she was still timid when being vulnerable in front of him, when making mistakes in front of him. And Sasuke would vastly prefer making jokes about his betrayal than having her cry over it. He had undoubtedly caused Sakura to cry enough already.

"Then training," she asked again.

"Sakura, Naruto told me that none of you guys show up on time for training anymore-"

Sakura interrupted him, "It's going to be us for a couple hours. We need to talk about something."

He swung his legs and flinched when they touched the cold floor. Sasuke wondered when Sakura had gained the courage to tell him what to do. He walked barefoot, careful, and still sleep warm, over to Sakura. "Can I shower, or do you need to talk now?"

She sighed, "You can shower while I make breakfast; we're going to talk here, not at the training grounds."

He stretched out a hand to her, Sakura threaded her fingers through his. She wore fingerless gloves like Kakashi, and the pad of his pointer finger rested against the cold metal protecting the back of her hands. He traced the groves of the engraved Konoha leaf symbol. "Did I do something," he asked. His heart beating so fast in his chest, he could barely hear it; the empty drop of his stomach was rapidly filling with dread. He couldn't bear thinking about all the ways he had hurt Sakura in the past, and just because she hadn't been willing to speak to him about it before now doesn't mean she wouldn't. He wanted to lay down on the floor, to press his cheek against the cold wooden floor, to at least lay down until he could actually hear his heart again or until he wasn't such a perpetual fuck up.

"No, Sasuke." Sakura reached her other hand to him. They stood now, in Sasuke's room. Holding each other's hands like a mockery of a relationship they would never have. A parody of everything Sasuke knew Sakura used to want and would never want again, at least not with him.

"Sakura, did I do something?" he asked again.

"No," she shook her head, her pink hair just brushing her freckled shoulders. "I wanted to talk about you and Kakashi," she admitted. Viridian gaze sharp, looking for any hint of discomfort.

Oh. He felt lightheaded. He tipped his head back so that the breaking dawn outside his home cut against his skin. The light flitted across their bodies like kisses. He could remember suddenly being 10 years old, Aburame Shino spreading his winged kaichu around him until they landed against Sasuke, their effervescent chakra soft against his flames and wings leaving kaleidoscope dust on his hands and fingers where they handed. It felt like this. He could barely keep his eyes open.

"Sasuke, are you alright," Sakura asked, concerned with furrowed brows.

"I feel fine," he said automatically. "I just need to lie down." He studied the room around them and decided to take the only available course of action. He sat on the floor.

"Oh shit. I didn't mean to worry you." Sakura stepped forward, but Sasuke shook his head. "Are you having a panic attack?"

He blinked at her. "Do I look like I'm having a panic attack," he asked, pulling his mouth into a facade of a smile.

"There's more than one way to have a panic attack. You don't have to be hyperventilating-"

He tuned her out to avoid the inevitable Medic Nin lecture. Sasuke hadn't known that. He never reacted the way other people did to anything. So, when his head would grow heavy, his temperature rising with a hum in the back of his head, and his heart disappearing from his chest, all hollowed out, he never thought it could be considered a panic attack. "Hey," he said, surprised, "I think I'm having a panic attack."

She dropped to her knees in front of him, "What can I do to help?" Her hands hovered over him, uncertain as to look for a physical injury she could heal and being disappointed to find nothing.

"Can you just, can you just sit outside and leave me alone for a bit," he asked. He needed quiet in this space to bring himself down from the ledge.

Some measure of hurt flashed on her face before she acquiesced. And then he was alone.

Sasuke stretched out on the floor and pressed his face to the floor. He started humming. It sounded like his mother ghosting a hand to his temple when comforting him, the low murmur of her voice keeping sickness at bay, a lighthouse in his otherwise lonely sea. It sounded like the constant buzz of kaichu surrounding Konoha, a byproduct of having the Aburame Clan within its wall. He kept trying to drown out the ringing in his head, tongue tickling the seam of his lips. _Kakashi,_ he breathed out.

Of course, Sakura had noticed.

***

There were several reasons why Sasuke came back to Konoha and stayed:

  1. Sasuke killed Orochimaru, and his mentor's dying wish was to be buried in Konoha. The Sannin had been born within those wooden walls, and for better or for worse. Orochimaru had spent a lifetime in the shadows of legends until he decided to step into the dark in hopes of becoming one himself. He had inked the stories of loss and pain and the birth of all things great against his skin in the attempt to write his own odyssey. Sasuke wasn't cruel enough to take away Orochimaru's claim to a Konoha or vice versa.
  2. Sasuke had spent the last five years swallowing down his own anxiety his choices gave him. The first couple months after leaving Konoha, he had spent hours every day fighting Orochimaru's possessive dark, regretting that he had hurt so many in order to leave Konoha _-the quiet gasp that Naruto made with Sasuke's fist through his chest haunted his dreams_ \- but so relieved that he had left at all. Slowly, the guilt of his betrayal had become a gaping maw in the back of his mind; he had to go back, and he had to atone for his mistakes.
  3. When he had been detained by the Konoha police, the same police force that his ancestors had built from the ground up with the Nidaime Hokage, Kakashi had overseen his arrest. The sun had been low in the sky, backlighting the Konoha skyline, and the sunset bathed Kakashi's silver hair in shades of burnished gold. Strange shadows had fallen on the man's face, indiscernible with his navy-blue mask. Sasuke had barely been able to see Kakashi's eyelashes, a delicate lace of silver bright against the man's clothed cheekbones, the color so light and the sky still violent with reds, oranges, and pinks. Kakashi's lips had parted under the mask to say something. A breath. His name.



***

He wakes up in his bed even though he has no memory of getting there. He feels emptied out, like a part of him was still pressed to the floor, but a part of him was curled into his bed, and yet he could still feel the cold press of wooden floors against his temple. He could still feel Kakashi's name in his mouth, like an empty promise meant for him, the only thing keeping him here, a secret to be kept by these four lonely walls.

Sakura, presumably, has pushed aside his curtains, and the sun dappled against his skin and blankets like spots of paint. It was light out, and it bounced off the wooden walls of his room; dust motes fell softly through the air. When Sasuke was little, he tried to hold dust motes in his hands, but he could never catch his quarry. He wanted to let the morning fill him up like liquid gold, to seep into his skin, the way heat from holding a warm cup of tea in his hand does, to then burn hotter and scorch his bones with fire that would never flicker out and make it so he would never be cold ever again.

He hears Sakura banging around the Uchiha compound as she complains about not being able to find anything. She does this often. Sasuke has a tendency to re-organize his kitchen whenever he is bored, and since he can't take missions higher than a C rank, he's bored a lot. Sakura knows this, seeing as she has spent most of the past four months since he got out of prison helping him clean the Uchiha district and getting to know him all over again, or maybe getting to know him for the first time. She's learned how he likes his coffee, with enough milk and sugar to not really be considered coffee, and on which days he will instead drink four cups of green tea in a single sitting, or when he'll drink his chai.

On the days where his memories of his parents are strong enough that the only way out is through them, they'll sit with the news on in the background and delicately and efficiently tear into breakfast, the crispness of paratha tearing into soft egg yolks and haltingly explain when he used to do the same as a child. Sakura knows that he'll keep himself up at night because the hours between midnight and dawn are when he feels most at home in the district. It is the only time when the silence feels normal and not oppressive, and during this time is when Sasuke will start re-organizing his cabinets.

He hadn't given much thought to his home when he left Konoha, other than the sheer relief of not having to live in the same house where his parents had been murdered. But he was once again the scion of the clan, and there was work to be done. When he came back, the district had been ramshackled by his absence. Weaponry had to be collected from each house that used to have shinobi residents, properly cleaned and repaired if possible, and safely stored. Naruto had hired three excitable genin teams to tend to the grounds, weeding the many gardens and seeing what was salvageable or what needed to be done to start his vegetable garden again. Someone needed to find the Uchiha summoning contracts that no longer had summoners and re-register them with the Hokage's office. Clothes had to be washed and stored or given away to charity. The bakeries, tailor shops, and stores needed to be repaired and rented out to whoever wanted them. The Naka Shrine's central fire needed to be lit, and bells had to hang over every doorway of every house in remembrance of those killed under Itachi's sword. Sasuke himself needed to pray over the district to ward off ghosts and spirits that may still find a home in burnt houses. The Naka River was under Uchiha protection once more and needed to be cleaned and evaluated by the Konoha Environmental Committee by the end of the year. It was a monumental task to rebuild the district, and he was grateful that Sakura and Naruto had shouldered the burden of Sasuke's own loss; it wasn't possible to do this alone.

His teammates would come over three days a week and help him direct the rebuilding of the district. So, it was common to see Sakura rifling through his kitchen cabinet for food or Naruto babbling about the seals hidden all over the compound. The sight of them, in his home, to have Naruto teach him how to take care of the plants in his mother's garden, to have Sakura yell at him for biting into the wild tomatoes as if they were apples, to make him breakfast, to have the bumbling genins leave their jackets strewn over the living room sofas, shoes left in front of the doorway, and subsequently tripping over them whenever they entered the house, coaxing life into him and the district, never failed to take his breath away.

Sakura makes him pancakes because it is honestly the only thing she can make consistently well, and she probably felt guilty for setting Sasuke off earlier this morning. When they had been younger on missions, and Sakura had been chasing a version of herself that she never wanted to be, she would offer to cook all the meals at their campfires and to pack bento boxes for their team training. Slowly she would get increasingly frustrated at her own struggles until Sasuke took over cooking for the team to save everyone from starving or getting food poisoning.

Sasuke doesn't stop her; it's Sakura's way of handling herself and his way of getting someone else to make him food that he doesn't have to pay for.

"So," she starts. "I'm sorry about this morning." Shooting him a glance over her shoulders.

"Thank you." He pauses, "you're fine."

"I shouldn't have pushed this on you so suddenly," Sakura at least has the decency to look apologetic for effectively and efficiently ruining his morning. Her hair is a blaze of pink underneath the kitchen lights, soft and curling inwards at the ends. Sasuke had been surprised that she kept it short when he had gotten back. Then he remembered the fierce look in her eyes when she cut it off, absolute in her fury and resolve to protect him and Naruto, rising from her past self to become a kunoichi that would one day surpass the Godaime Hokage herself.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he starts, but Sakura shuts him down before he can even get into his denial.

"I understand that you don't want to talk about it, but I'm here for whenever or if ever you feel like you can," she says, firm in her support and pushing a stack of pancakes towards him from across the kitchen table. He dumps honey on them, ignoring Sakura pointedly putting a bottle of maple syrup in front of him.

"I don't want to ever talk about it," he replies. This is true. The nebula inside him has already collapsed under the weight of his memories of Kakashi and his team. He won't be able to handle another trip down memory lane anytime soon. He only recently learned to sleep in his childhood home. Still, Sasuke should really know by now that once Sakura feels a certain way about something, she won't change her mind for anyone. And even if she does ask, what would he say? He has no words for what happens to him every time he sees Kakashi. No way to explain why his eyes dart to every hand gesture the man makes. No way to explain why he thinks about wrapping his own hands around Kakashi's wrists, no way to explain why he thinks about making lightning still underneath him. No way to explain why he wants to rest with Kakashi, back to back under the cool breeze and sunlight. He is barely surprised when she takes his pancakes away from him and slams her hands down on the table.

"You can barely look at him in the eye when we're training. He takes us out to eat, and you sit as far away as you possibly can without leaving.," she begins, raising her eyebrows incredulously. "You don't ask him for extra training, or about his work, or about anything at all. Sasuke, you go out of your way to avoid him, and he notices," she says aghast, counting off each damning action with her fingers like a laundry list of all his mistakes.

Sasuke looks down at his plate of pancakes, held hostage by Sakura. He can no longer tell when he is hungry. Something rests in his stomach, but it's not food. The remains of honey still linger on his tongue, too sweet against the smell of slowly burning pancakes on the stove permeating the air. Sakura doesn't turn around, so Sasuke gets up and ambles to the stove to turn it off instead. The Uchiha compound is old and dear to him; he doesn't want to explain to anyone why he let Sakura set it on fire to make him pancakes.

"Why does he think I'm avoiding him," he says hesitantly. Kakashi is the only thing he has been consistently unsure of for almost his entire life, and it shows in the quiet morning of his kitchen.

Sakura hauls herself up to sit on top of his kitchen counter, swinging her legs, she bites her lips while looking at him. She has done this before, Sasuke realizes, biting her lip while talking to him. Except, there is no girlhood want on her face when she looks at him now. She is only worried about him and his godforsaken feelings towards a man better than him in every way, somehow both in his reach and impossible out of his league.

"We haven't really talked about why, only that you are. But I don't think anyone has realized why you avoid Kakashi."

"Why does he think I'm avoiding him, Sakura," he repeats.

She is still now, sitting on the counter where his mother used to prepare food for her family. In the kitchen where Sasuke had learned how to cut sweet watermelon for his brother when he returned from his ANBU duties. In the house that Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke were trying to bring back to life. If she couldn't tell him the hard truth here, then there was nowhere to tell him in the entire village. Only here did he find solace.

Sakura lets out a sigh, "He thinks you have some sort of problem with his authority or that you resent him for not visiting you while you were in prison," she admits. Once again biting her lip. Sasuke carefully turns his attention to the stove and starts pouring out the batter for a new stack of pancakes. There's no real reason, as his appetite had vanished the moment Sakura had decided to throw his feelings back at his face; he glances at the cat-shaped clock on the wall, at seven in the fucking morning.

Sakura sighs again, but she scoots closer to him. Working at the stove, Sasuke can smell the artificial strawberry of her shampoo and the smell of petrichor that follows her wherever she goes. Sasuke relaxes into it, wanting to curl his body around the softness that lingers in their every interaction, the knowledge that this is someone who would never hurt him, at least not on purpose. He doesn't know how to look Sakura in the eye and say that he, in fact, is ashamed. Ashamed for leaving when Kakashi's first teaching to Team Seven had been to never abandon your team. Ashamed for taking five years to come back to his team and this village. And maybe even worse, Sasuke does resent Kakashi for not visiting him while he was in prison, for forever leaving him with the image of Kakashi against a sunset, against the Konoha skyline, mouthing his name like a revelation. He no longer knows how to talk to the man or about him. Instead, he flips pancakes and says, "I don't hate him."

"Obviously, dumbass," scoffs Sakura. Hopping down from the counter and accepting her plate of pancakes far more gracefully than someone who was supposed to be cooking breakfast for _him_ should be.

"Then why are you here," he asks exasperatedly. "You already know everything."

She looks at him from across the table. "Naruto is getting ready to confront you about it."

Sasuke can't help it; he groans. Naruto is his best friend, right next to Sakura in terms of how much Sasuke trusts him, but he can't keep a secret to save his life; Sasuke isn't ready for that idiot's judgment of his life choices either, not when Naruto can't see Hinata's obvious crush for him even after all this time.

"I'd stop avoiding Kakashi if I were you," adds Sakura dryly. Sasuke looks at her in disgust. He should have realized it as soon as she broke down his door that this was a one-woman intervention.

"I don't have anything to talk to him about, Sakura," whines Sasuke. Which is true if you understand that Sasuke would rather die than talk about his budding feelings for the man.

Sakura looks at him, exasperatedly, "You would have things to talk to him about if you stopped avoiding him."

This is also true.

"Hn."

Sakura's hands spasm as if she is about to punch him. Which she probably is. She breathes out slowly, always patient for Sasuke even after all this time.

"You could talk to him about your time in Otogakure," she says, easily looking at him with a flinty gaze. "You could talk to any of us about your time there. I'm sure it'll be a conversation starter at the very least."

He clenches his jaw at the sudden overwhelming anger that rushes through him. Sasuke has always been quick to anger, and it has only gotten worse since Otogakure. But it was in that village where Sasuke learned how to control his anger, instead of letting his rage control him.

"I don't want to talk about it. It doesn't matter anymore," he bites out. Sakura looks at him incredulously.

"You spent five years with Orochimaru before you killed him, and you're saying it doesn't matter," she drawls, deceptively calm. "It doesn't matter that we barely know anything about your time with that monster, it doesn't matter that you haven't told us anything willingly that T&I couldn't get out of you, it doesn't matter that you seem like a completely different person than who you were when you left," Sakura rages at him now. Her chakra is the rumble of the ground before an earthquake, the scent of the sea during a storm. He isn't the only one who has changed, Sasuke thinks idly; there is something lovely and deep about Sakura's chakra. The yin seal that she has been toiling over has made her into something unfathomable.

"How can you say it doesn't matter, Sasuke." She leans back in her chair, and the wood scrapes against the wooden floor, a sound that would have made his mother hiss under her breath at. He doesn't answer that because he has absolutely no idea how he would describe his relationship with Orochimaru. He places his hands on the counter behind him, leaning back almost in an attempt to ground himself in this moment and, in the same breath, get away from Sakura's questions. He should know at this point that Sakura will not leave him be.

"Because it's not your business to know, it's mine. I just had a damn panic attack because I thought you wanted to talk about _him_ ," he grits out, unable to say Kakashi's name in the safety of his own home. Sakura flinches away from him. "And you said you wouldn't push even five minutes ago Sakura, what the fuck are you doing." His rage transforms into despair when he thinks of Orochimaru and the Village of the Hidden Sound, Otogakure. Sakura looks at him wide-eyed.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. She leans back as if to give him some space, "I keep fucking up this morning, don't I," she asks sardonically.

"A bit, yeah," he says because he can't let Sakura think what she did this morning in response to his panic attack was okay. The thing about Team Seven was that they were all terrible at setting boundaries and somehow equally terrible at letting people in. It was the main reason they were so dysfunctional as teens and why they tiptoed around hard topics like Sasuke's betrayal. Naruto grew up an orphan, Sasuke's family had been murdered by his brother, and Sakura had spent most of her younger years acting as a civilian girl to please her parents when she was anything but. None of them had been taught how to have meaningful conversations with other people.

He turns to set a freshly made stack of pancakes on the table behind him and thinks about where he is.

Sasuke had spent five years running away from Konoha, thinking that he was running towards his brother instead. Otogakure had become a home to him in a way that Konoha could not, not with his family's ashes sitting in a shrine. He had polished his mother's urn every day for years after her death; he knows the curve of ceramic under his fingertips better than he knows himself. He had been desperate to get away from it, desperate enough that he ran away to the man who killed his Kage and destroyed the village that his parents had given vows to protect. The freedom of Otogakure had been a relief in many ways. Orochimaru had provided Sasuke with a will to live that curbed his self-destructive tendencies early on in a way Konoha could only hope for.

But when Sasuke had to kill Orochimaru, he had taken the body back here, to the birthplace of two traitors who had only ever wanted a family and were probably never going to get one.

When he returned, he spent a year in prison, a lenient punishment made possible because Sasuke had been a genin when he left Konoha. He had been an extremely traumatized child with the rarest dojutsu in all the elemental nations. He was granted such leniency because his lawyers were brilliant strategists and his teacher was Hatake Kakashi, a student of the Yondaime and future Rokudaime. His other two teammates were

  1. Sakura; apprentice and political advisor to the Godaime Hokage
  2. Naruto; son of the Yondaime and most likely Hatake Kakashi's successor
  3. Both incredibly stubborn about Sasuke and willing to advocate for him



Sakura shifts to walk beside him and once again hops on the counter, "You know…" she begins.

"What is it?"

"People always think that Team Seven has this thing about loyalty-"

"Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash," Sasuke recites automatically. Kakashi hadn't taught him much besides the Chidori and his own nindo, but it was enough. "We do have a thing about loyalty," he says, turning to face her.

She tips to the side to rest her head against the curve of his neck and starts talking, "The thing is, people always think that it's Naruto and me somehow holding this team together. But when you left, Naruto went away with Jiraiya for three years. I studied with Tsunade, and Kakashi-sensei went back to ANBU and eventually became the Hokage-Elect." Sakura stops, the chakra underneath her skin rumbles like a coming earthquake, devastating in the quiet morning of his kitchen. "When you came back, it was the first time that Naruto, Sensei, and I finally started talking again. We have a chance," she said, fierce now, "we have a chance to finally be a real team, and I don't want to fuck it up, so I don't want to pressure you. So, when you're ready to talk…"

Sasuke turns off the stove; he doesn't think they are going to be eating breakfast today.

"We want to know you, Sasuke. We want you to know us. We've all been alone for almost half a decade and-" she cuts herself off, frustrated at her own lack of eloquence, but Sasuke understood. They were bound to each other like stars in orbit, and Sasuke occupied all the space in-between. Team Seven had fucked up once, and there was no going back to what they were before. Sasuke had killed that first dream with lightning in his hands and a hole through Naruto's chest. He could mention that Kakashi seemed to have no interest in knowing him, but he won't. He came back for redemption and for atonement, so they would find a way to be a team again.

Sakura leaves soon after, and Sasuke sits at his kitchen table, eating the pancakes that Sakura was supposed to make for him. A few hours ago, Sasuke had a panic attack where Sakura had to put him to bed like a child. Now, he could feel the warmth of her body pressed against his side, her face tucked into his neck, murmuring fragile hope into sleepy, warm skin, a foundation being built under their feet.

***

The Naka river belongs to the Uchiha clan; it had been part of the clan's property when the Uchiha and Senju decided to raise a village out of the trees. The clan needed the river to soothe whatever flames burned in their mouths, needed a reminder that they were both from the sea and the sun. So, instead of ceding the territory to the village, the Uchiha had been allowed to keep the river, thanks to being one of Konoha's two founding clans. The river starts several miles outside Konoha's walls, and it empties into the Hanguri Gulf over 200 miles away, until it finally goes back to the Nanmen ocean. Sasuke's father had made a portion of the river into protected territory when he first made clan head at 16. He had spent twenty years with Sasuke's mother coordinating with the KEC, cleaning out 100 miles of river, its banks, and advocating for its protection. The river was sacred ground for the clan. Every child learned their first Katon over the river to protect themselves from burning, and whenever a clan member died, every able member of the family would walk to the river and place flickering bright fire on the surface of the water. The fires lay in the stillness for the river and eventually rose to the air and faded, a metaphor for the lives lost.

When his cousin Shisui had drowned himself in the river, when Shisui had sent himself away before anyone who loved him could properly mourn him, Sasuke's mother and father had lit the entire river on fire, and it had burned for a week before Itachi had killed their whole family. That's how ANBU patrols had known something had gone wrong in the district. All the lights had gone dark.

The river is where Sasuke swims now, every morning just as the sun crests over the rock formations outside of Konoha, shadowed by the Harashima Forest that hides three million inhabitants from sight. Kakashi makes himself home on its banks when Sasuke gets himself out of the river. Chest heaving from his swim, mile after mile every morning in this morning glory, Sasuke's breath hitches when he sees Kakashi. His body is an unacceptable betrayal of his heart.

Meanwhile, Kakashi seems entirely at ease. A copy of Icha Icha Violence held in his hands, an elbow propped on his bent knee and leaning against one of the giant Hashirama trees along the river shore. He doesn't glance up at Sasuke, so he briefly entertains the thought of going back into the water and letting the river wash him away.

But he can't, because Kakashi is leaning against a tree on the shore of the Naka River waiting to talk to Sasuke, and no matter how hypocritical it may be, Hatake Kakashi doesn't like to be kept waiting.

He walks towards Kakashi, dread slowing his steps to a standstill in front of the man.

"So," drawls Kakashi, still not looking up from his damn literotica.

"So," mimics Sasuke, shifting his stance in front of Kakashi, careful to not let any of the water dripping from him onto the man. Kakashi finally deigns to look up at Sasuke, and it takes everything that Sasuke has to resist taking a step back and looking away. He can count on one hand the number of times he has looked Kakashi in the eye since coming back from Orochimaru.

"You want to explain why you've been avoiding me ever since you got back," asks Kakashi, relaxing further into the tree behind him. He didn't seem perturbed at seeing Sasuke nearly naked and dripping water into the dirt below them; Sasuke flushed at the direction of his own thoughts. There was no damn reason why Hatake Kakashi would ever look at him twice regardless of his state of dress; the man had hardly blinked when he saw Sasuke getting arrested when he first came back to Konoha. He wasn't going to wake up one day being magically attracted to his former student.

"I'm not avoiding you," Sasuke insists stubbornly, "You're avoiding me." Kakashi lifts a singular brow to look at him, a question.

"No, I'm not," Kakashi challenges, finally putting away his book and giving Sasuke his undivided attention. Kakashi's attention has always been a tremendous thing to hold, and Sasuke has always been desperate to escape from the way it has come to make him feel. Even before he knew what all those feelings meant. But he holds Kakashi's gaze now because Sakura had told Sasuke that they had a chance to be more than what they were, and sage knows that Team Seven wouldn't be complete without their sensei.

"You didn't visit me even once while I was in prison or when I got out four months ago," he replies without missing a beat. It still stings after all this time. When Sasuke was first put into Konoha Prison, he lay awake with shame and anxiety unspooling in his stomach every night; he dreaded what Kakashi would say to him when they finally saw each other again. _Would he scream at him_ , Sasuke wondered, _or would he just look at him, with his quicksilver eye heavy with regret._ But Kakashi never visited him, not even once. The silence between them bleeds memories like an open wound, fills his mouth with the taste of blood and ozone. All the unmarked territory of their relationship laid out before them like a wasteland, stretching into a burning horizon.

Kakashi hauls himself up, feet planted shoulder-width apart. He stands like he is expecting a fight, and lord knows that Sasuke has always given him one, except for now.

"How's it going," asks Kakashi, hands in his pockets slouched over but still somehow able to look Sasuke in the eye.

"It's fine," Sasuke replies. "Sakura and Naruto have been helping a lot with cleaning the district."

"You've made progress."

"Yeah, we hired a bunch of genin teams to sort out the repair and maintenance, but there's a lot of," he breaks off, faltering. Kakashi tilts his head in question. "There's a lot of personal effects," he begins again—something like understanding flashes through Kakashi's lone visible eye.

Sasuke has to clench his fists at the surge of emotion in him. More than a decade has passed since the massacre, and he still doesn't know how to manage people's reactions to his own loss. Logically he knows that he can't stop people from reacting how they will, and Kakashi is better than most because he too is the last of his clan. He understands the pain of having to rebuild something broken. It is only the knowledge that Kakashi has lost everyone from his parents to his entire genin cell that keeps Sasuke from going on the defensive. Instead, he pauses. Takes stock of Kakashi standing in front of him. Remember, Sakura's warmth pressed against him. Remembers whispering this man's name to the floor of his room as if that alone could save Sasuke from himself.

"You could come and see," he blurts out. Kakashi's eye widens. "Naruto and Sakura come over on Fridays and stay through the weekend. So, you could come to see the work we're doing; the district looks better, we finished repairing the training grounds so you could come." He didn't mean to say that. Letting Kakashi know that he was fixing up his parent's district in the hopes that his old teacher would visit him was too much too soon. Kakashi has never reacted well to vulnerability.

Because Kakashi hasn't seen him since his arrest, and Sasuke had kept the memories of Team Seven tucked inside his chest for five years. But Kakashi was making an effort in the only way he knew how. He would track Sasuke down and confront him about Sasuke's mistakes before his own, but that was fair too. There was a history between them that wasn't going to change. _But maybe_ , thought Sasuke, _maybe the two of them could still change_.

"Okay," Kakashi says, his voice a crackling whisper between them. Sasuke can no longer meet Kakashi's gaze, choosing to fix his eyes on a patch of moss on the trees behind his former teacher, twining itself around the trunk of the tree as if it could not possibly exist without.

"Good," Sasuke replies. Relief relaxing the knot in his stomach, the fear that Kakashi would say no and Sasuke would be left alone with an extended hand dissipating.

"Good," he repeats, into the empty space Kakashi leaves behind when he flickers away.

***

If Sasuke could depend on nothing else in the world, he could depend on Naruto having an all-consuming obsession with ramen. The blonde had badgered everyone he ever became friends with to go with him to Ichiraku's, and Sasuke and Sakura had gotten the brunt of it as his teammates. So, it isn't unusual that Sasuke finds himself at Ichiraku's; it is unusual that he does so without Sakura and Naruto on either side. But Naruto is working with Jiraiya in the Konoha Intelligence Bureau, and KIB has never been fond of him, seeing as he betrayed the village, ran away with the snake Sannin after said snake Sannin murdered the Hokage, and spent about five years running around the world doing god knows what. Meanwhile, Sakura had squirreled off to experiment with poisons with Shizune in one of Konoha's many top-tier labs in the _Poison Corps_ research labs.

So Sasuke is alone and enjoying a rare quiet meal without his ramen stealing teammates when Ino drops into the seat next to him.

"One miso, if you have it, Ayame," she calls out, golden hair pulled into a braid over her shoulder.

Sasuke stares dejectedly at his own ramen and prepares himself for Ino's particular brand of mental bullshit that only a Yamanaka kunoichi would be able to pull.

"Hi Sasuke, I didn't see you there," says Ino, turning to face him enthusiastically, a bright smile on her face. Sasuke makes eye contact with Ayame behind the counter, who understandably grimaces at the bald-faced lie.

"As a shinobi," begins Sasuke, exasperated, "you should be better at lying."

"I'm not lying dumbass, I wanted to talk to you, and it is nice to see you," replies Ino rolling her eyes. Ayame places a bowl in front of her, and Ino thanks her loudly. _What is it with blondes in Konoha_ , Sasuke wonders; _he's never met a quiet one_. Ino turns to him in her seat, gazing at him with her glaring lack of pupils, which makes all Yamanaka so famous or infamous depending on how you look at it.

"Then talk Ino, I don't have time for any of your mind games today."

"Your problem is that you never want to talk," growls Ino, finally digging into her bowl. Sasuke once again makes eye contact with Ayame, who is very determinedly wiping the counter. He really cannot handle another one of Ino's attempts at a lecture/therapy session that she has been pushing on him since he got out of prison, so he places some notes on the counter and makes to leave before Ino grips the back of his neck and hauls him onto the stool. Sasuke twists away from her. It is only his knowledge that Naruto would actually cry if he destroyed Ichiraku's while fighting one of Sakura's best friends in Konoha that stops him from grabbing Ino and starting something.

"What the fuck do you want Ino, I don't have all day."

"I need to talk to you about Uncharted Territories," she says blandly. Swinging her legs to hook onto his stool, as if that could stop Sasuke if he wanted to actually leave.

"What?" Flat and uninterested.

Ino shifts on her stool and hums, "More specifically, I want to talk about how much you know about the elemental nation's terrain, especially since the terrain is changing so much lately." Her gaze is a sharp blue now, and Sasuke is abruptly reminded that Ino graduated in the top five of their graduating class and kept up with Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, and Sarutobi fucking Asuma for the past five years. Orochimaru had kept close tabs on her while in Sound, and Sasuke had full knowledge of how damn smart and dangerous Ino was. "You spent about five years as one of Orochimaru's agents traveling on his behalf, which makes you one of the most well-traveled shinobi we have, and by far the youngest. There's a lot that Konoha doesn't know about new villages rising up in Uncharted Territory, and I don't need to tell you that KIB has made unforgettable mistakes in regards to this exact topic in the last decade," recite Ino, fists clenching her chopsticks like she is ready to use them like a kunai.

Nothing that she says is false; not being able to predict that Orochimaru was going to invade the village was the single biggest intelligence failure in modern history; Konoha's credibility had taken a significant hit in the last five years, which of course, had been one of Orochimaru's goals.

Ino breathes out a sigh, "We need better people in intelligence, so I'd like to recommend you for a consulting position in KIB with my squad."

Sasuke's jaw drops, as does whatever Ayame was holding in the kitchen while she eavesdropped on their conversation. Ino's eyes flicker to the curtain hiding the kitchen with a small smile and gets up to leave Ichiraku's, placing money on the table as Sasuke had done. "I've asked Sakura to give you the forms for the application, and I would urge you to consider it Sasuke," and with that, she left.

Sasuke stared at the stool Ino had occupied and scrubbed his hands over his face. "Fucking Yamanaka's," he muttered.

***

It takes Sasuke two days to talk to Sakura about Ino's proposal. It took two days because Sakura spent most of her time pulling back to back shifts at the trauma ward at Konoha General Hospital and the rest of it as a political advisor to the Godaime Hokage. If Sasuke interrupted her during any of those times, she might actually murder him. Sakura had spent the five years since Sasuke had been gone building a reputation as one of Konoha's finest, and Sasuke didn't have any right to jeopardize it with the political shitshow that was his reintegration into Konoha. So, he waited patiently for Sakura to come to him instead, at his house. She showed up at three in the morning, returning from a brutal shift at the hospital, looking as tired as he and Naruto did after a training session with Kakashi, barely upright and covered in questionable materials. Sakura slipped into his house using the key he had given her a month after getting out of prison and walked to where he was waiting at the kitchen table.

"Hey," she said, exhausted and dropping her bag into the chair beside her.

"You look like shit," he replied back, "no offense."

"None taken," she snorted, pushing her limp pink hair back from where it had fallen out of her hitae-ate. Sakura looked up at him; the lights in the kitchen had been dimmed because Sasuke could only take so much light after having to wake up just 15 minutes before when he sensed Sakura's chakra making a beeline towards him. Despite all her obvious signs of exhaustion, the smell of petrichor is bright and clear in his kitchen, and her chakra is immovable under his careful gaze.

"So, Ino talked to you."

"It was less of a conversation, and more like she told me what was happening at KIB, Sakura."

"I'll be honest with you," she says, her green gaze boring into him, "I think this is a really good opportunity for you."

"Sakura, there is no one in this goddamn village except you and Ino who would think me working for Intelligence is a good idea. No one trusts me to take on more than a C ranked mission," he says, scoffing.

"Then this could be what helps you along," she argues back. "You would only be a consultant, and you would be using the information you learned while away for Konoha's betterment, and we really need someone who understands shadow villages, Sasuke."

He looks at her then. Shadow Villages is a term that came into popular terminology after Orochimaru had invaded. Otogakure was a shadow village, existing in large parts only in its victims and survivors' memories and nightmares. They weren't fully functioning hidden villages, but an imitation of them. Dangerous and aggressive when provoked, with none of the soft power and wealth that made hidden villages into sprawling metropolises for shinobi and civilians alike. But the way Sakura says Konoha needs someone who understands them, he narrows his eyes at her. She watches him, steady in the rising storm on their horizon.

"Has another shadow village risen." It isn't a question. They both know what Akatsuki is and what they are trying to do.

"I can't talk about it, Sasuke. It's classified information."

He sighs under his breath at the reply. At least now he knows why Ino and Sakura are pushing for this. Sasuke is arguably one of the Elemental Nations leading experts on Shadow Villages, and if Akatsuki is making moves, his gaze flickers beyond the district with an exhale. Naruto's chakra is a maelstrom in Konoha's downtown, spinning so fast and so bright, and Sasuke is immediately nauseous at the thought of Akatsuki, or Itachi, getting their hands on him and putting that light out.

"Alright," he breathes out. Sakura's lip curls up in victory, something viciously bright in her win that she most definitely didn't have before he left for Oto.

"Good," she says. "We'll talk about the process tomorrow, but for now," she narrows her viridian eyes at him, "make me dinner, or breakfast, or whatever, I'm so fucking hungry," she whines.

Sasuke snorts at her demands, secretly pleased that she would at least stay. She and Naruto usually stayed weekends at his house, but their work had kept them busy, and both had apartments closer to their places of work than the district. Waking up to an empty district was harrowing at times, especially when Sasuke remembers morning that would start with the bright screeching laughter of his younger cousins and his mother waking him up for school.

***

Sasuke makes Sakura a belated dinner, which amounts to fried rice made from his leftovers, and then four hours later makes her breakfast while she talks him through the application process of KIB.

The thing about working for an intelligence gathering operation like the KIB is that the application process to do anything was incredibly convoluted. Usually, Sasuke would have to apply during their recruitment period or be approached by an agent of the Bureau, and then wait for at least a year for his background check to go through. His friends and colleagues were to be brought in and questioned about him. His paper trail would be scrutinized by some analysts from KIB HR. He would be brought in for extensive interrogations under lie detection seals about his intentions. Usually, he would need an absolutely stellar recommendation from a Jounin who had served more than 10 years in the Shinobi Armed Forces, as long as they weren't from his Jounin teacher from his genin days.

Sasuke has to do almost none of it. _Being a consultant doesn't come with the same scrutiny as being an agent,_ he thought idly _, though KIB has been investigating him for the past five years; they already have his life in their hands._ So, on a Monday morning, he walks into the KIB building, taking in the linoleum tiling and massive reception room. On the front-facing wall, there is a portrait of Yamanaka Yukimori, his blue pupil-less gaze boring into any and all visitors with startling intensity. Underneath are the words; _A village is only as prosperous as the length of its shadow._ Fitting. Sasuke would expect nothing less from the man who helped the Nidaime Hokage lay down the foundations of Konoha's entire intelligence network. Standing next to the reception desk is Ino, dressed in dark pants and blouse, her KIB issued lanyard dangling from her neck.

"Sasuke," she calls, raising a hand in greeting. As if Sasuke can't fucking see her. People milling around the lobby turn to stare at them as Sasuke walks up to Ino.

"Glad you decided to join us," she smirks.

"I'm entirely certain you would have forced me into this one way or another, Ino."

She claps a hand on his shoulder, smiled winningly at the wide-eyed receptionist, and steered him to her office. Because apparently, at the ripe old age of 19, Yamanaka Ino was one of KIB's best analysts and had her own office. "You're going to meet the team today. Try not to make as horrible of a first impression as you do with everyone else."

He opened his mouth in outrage, "Fuck off, Ino," he snarled.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about, moron," Ino sighs exasperatedly, and it is so familiar to Sakura berating him that Sasuke wants to physically shake his head to chase away the image. Her hand on the back of his neck squeezes once before Ino shoves him through a door that has _Yamanaka Ino, Senior Analyst,_ lettered onto it.

He stumbles into her office to the stares of five other people sprawled out on the couch and floor, paper covering almost every surface. A man with short-cropped blond hair stands in front of an outdated map of Bear Country, liberally marking it with bright red pen marks. He doesn't even turn to look at Sasuke and Ino. Two women are seated on the butter brown couch against one pale wall and glance up at Sasuke with some interest, and after a quick glance at Ino, they close the folders on the table and sit up expectantly. There is another woman, he notes with some interest, lounging in behind Ino's desk, feet propped up on her desk. She tilts her head at him and smiles, a quick false movement of her lips that makes it perfectly clear what she thinks of him. _Great_ , he thinks, eyeing her warily. He knows damn well not to piss off kunoichi that looks at him like that. The last man standing closest to them is the only one who approaches them.

"Hello, Uchiha Sasuke, right?"

"Yeah," he says. The man extended a hand and a warm smile, crinkles forming around his green eyes.

"I'm Watanabe Yuto; I specialize in tracking, and I worked as a hunter nin for ANBU for a couple years before Ino convinced me to move to KIB. I look forward to working with you." He is earnest in a way that people rarely are with him, and Sasuke can't help but hope that this team won't wholly reject him on sight.

Of course, all his hopes crash to the ground when the kunoichi sitting at Ino's desk walks up to him. She's wearing heels taller than even Ino's, yet she doesn't make a single sound. She sticks out a hand like it's a weapon, which of course, being a shinobi, it is. Never one to back down from a challenge, Sasuke responds in kind.

"Name's Shiranui Akari. Special Jounin, I specialize in interrogation." The smile she gives is lazy, but she stands with a predatory sort of grace that Sasuke rarely sees in people outside of Kakashi. Her brown hair falls just above her shoulder, and she looks so familiar that Sasuke can't help asking.

"Have we met before, Akari?"

Her hand tightens around his before she drops it, "No, but you've probably seen my older brother, Genma, around."

 _Well_ , thinks Sasuke wryly. An interrogation specialist with an attitude problem, with a chip on her shoulder about an older brother who almost single-handedly reformed Konoha's _Poison Corps_ and was a member of the Yondaime's Guard Platoon at _fourteen_. _That's not relatable at all_.

"Yamamoto Touya, I co-captain the team," calls out the blonde man standing by the map. He is still absentmindedly marking up the map, now peppering it with sticky notes. He glances up and gives a smirk. "You heard of me?"

And Sasuke has to focus on breathing because he can't think of a name more famous on the modern battlefield, except for the Yondaime himself. Yamamoto Touya was one of the men Orochimaru desperately wanted in Oto but could never even dream of getting. The man was on par with Hatake Kakashi and Nara Shikaku. A genius by every measure and one of the key strategists who worked with the Yondaime to end the Third Shinobi World War. He had devised the strategy to cut off Iwagakure's supply chain and ruthlessly starved out all the Iwa nin that the Yondaime couldn't kill. He was in his late forties and supposedly retired. Sasuke's gaze flickered to Ino, standing beside him. She looked at him like a dragon showing off her hoard, and he snorted because Touya was undoubtedly her crown jewel. _Why the hell was the famed war hero working with a nineteen-year-old analyst_ , Sasuke speculated. This was shaping up to be far more interesting than he expected.

"Don't go hogging all the attention, Touya," remarks one of the women sitting on the couch. She smiles at Sasuke and walks over to him, her curtain of black hair chiming in greeting. "The name's Hashimoto Rin, counterintelligence and terrorism expert. I was ANBU black ops for a while before I decided to switch gears. I think we are going to work really well together, Uchiha." Her smile is polite, and her grip is firm.

"Nice to meet you," he replies back.

"That just leaves me, doesn't it," drawls the last woman. She rises from the couch just as Rin ambles back to it. Her hair is cropped close to her skull, and she is the only person in the room with a ring on her finger. The glittering diamond winks at Sasuke when she reaches out.

"Nice to meet you."

"No need to be so fucking stiff kid, I'm Fujiwara Keiko. I've been working at KIB for five years now, I'm a human trafficking expert, and I also work in logistics."

"And you already know who I am," remarks Ino brightly, and Sasuke is pleased to know he isn't the only one to roll his eyes. Yuto winks at him winningly and beams even when Sasuke doesn't respond. "Now that all the intros are done let's get to it." Akari hops off of Ino's chair, and Ino slides in, placing clasped hands on her desk and staring at them expectedly. "Rin, why don't you let Sasuke know what we're doing."

"Of course, ma'am." Keiko slides behind Sasuke to close the door with a definitive click and, with a motion of her hand, activates the privacy seal etched onto one of the walls. Sasuke lifted a single eyebrow in a fashion reminiscent of Kakashi when he was younger and unamused by his genin's antics. Keiko grins at him. "For the past two years, this task force has been investigating the terrorist organization called Akatsuki."

"I know who they are," says Sasuke, crossing his arms; it's hard to forget the organization his brother joined when he became a missing-nin. Akatsuki has been on the back of his mind for six years now.

"I bet you do," remarks Akira, and he tenses, "Itachi is a lieutenant for the group, after all." _There it fucking it is,_ he thinks bitterly. The bait that almost every adult in his life had dangled in front of him to get him to lose control. But Sasuke spent five years outside of Konoha's forest canopy because he couldn't control his need for revenge, his obsession with his family's killer, his brother. And when he decided to leave Orochimaru, it was with the promise that he would never let anyone be able to control him like Orochimaru had, holding out scraps of information about Itachi and promises of strength to keep him close at the expense of his ancestor’s legacy and his own dignity.

"Yeah," he drawls, "pretty shitty of him considering Naruto is his younger brother's best friend." Akira's jaw drops.

"So, you're already familiar with their goal," interrupts Keiko.

He trunks back to her, smirking, "They're not exactly subtle about it."

Touya gives a quiet snort of laughter because Akatsuki members are known to have no regard for who knows they plan to harvest the power of the jinchuriki.

"Yeah, they have no problem letting the Hidden Villages know what they plan to do, but we have almost no information about why they want the jinchuriki's. We know who their top lieutenants are, but we have not found a single shred of information about Pein's goals beyond capturing the jinchuriki or about his second in command, Konan. They have a massive operation going on, and we can barely make heads or tails of where their fucking money goes," Keiko runs a hand over her head, a cowlick standing straight to attention.

"We also don't actually know how big they are," explains Rin. "We have intelligence that links the hidden village of Amegakure with Akatsuki, but we have no idea how deep the link goes. Ame is most definitely supplying them with weapons, but getting intelligence on Hanzo the Salamander is a shitshow in the best of times, and this may be the worst of them."

"How come now's the worst?" he asks.

"Because they're speeding up their timeline," retorts Akari. "They failed at kidnapping the Kazekage a couple weeks ago, and we think that they are gearing up to try to take Raikage's brother next." _Good luck with that_ , thought Sasuke; Killer Bee was a fucking battle ram to get through.

"We have an opportunity because the quicker they think they have to move, the more we can rush them, the more mistakes they'll make," chimes Yuto.

"So, we want them to take the jinchuriki," asks Sasuke incredulously.

"Obviously not; we want to dismantle their entire operation while they're too busy looking for the jinchuriki," chirps Ino.

He looks at Ino. Ino looks back at him, elegantly seated on a leather chair with a massive vase and flower arrangement behind her. The morning light paints her skin a pale blue; she lifts a single, perfectly penciled, blonde eyebrow at him. He turns to the rest of the group, "Okay, why the hell are _we_ doing this?" he demands.

"What do you mean," asks Ino, brow furrowed.

"I mean, this is a massive job, and we should have the Jounin Commander, and the Defense Minister, the Hokage, and I don't know, _our own resident jinchuriki_ working on this."

Not to mention the fact that Sasuke was only recently reinstated into the Shinobi Armed Forces after being a traitor for five years. There is no way in hell he has the necessary clearance level for this.

"Everyone you just named is aware of this, but due to the sensitive nature of Akatsuki's goals, everyone also decided it was best to keep this under wraps until we have more information. We get six months to figure out everything we can about Akatsuki and present our findings to the people you just mentioned, among others." Ino shakes a mane of blond hair and rises to her feet. "I have a meeting with ANBU STRATCOM in ten minutes, so Keiko and Touya are going to get you up to speed and set you up in your own office," she looks at him now.

"What's happening," demands Akira.

"Don't worry about it yet."

Ino faces him, and her gaze softens, "We talked extensively about you joining this task force, Sasuke. Everyone agreed that you would be an invaluable resource and analyst."

He highly doubts that Akira agreed, but he has more pressing questions to ask. "You said I would be just a consultant," he interrupts.

"She lied," drawls Yuto, "you're going to be an agent with us, at least until we figure out the whole Akatsuki thing. This information is too sensitive to pass off to a consultant, and we can't afford leaks, so welcome to the team." Yuto beams at him.

"Welcome aboard, Analyst Uchiha," echoes Ino and walks out the door, absentmindedly deactivating the privacy seal as she goes.

"Do I even get a choice?" wondered Sasuke aloud.

"Nope," answers Rin, smirking. One by one, Sasuke's team filters out the door until it's just Keiko and Touya left.

Sasuke spends the rest of the day filling out application forms to join the KIB. _I'm under duress_ , he wants to say to the HR employees who come to process his forms, and then getting briefed on the task force's progress by Keiko and Touya. It runs him ragged because on hand, most of this he already knew from working with Orochimaru, but it becomes undeniable that the snake Sannin had hidden some gruesome details about the organization he used to work for from Sasuke. It is clear the Akatsuki has ties to human trafficking groups surrounding Amegakure, funneling money in exchange for information, and planting spies within brothels and clubs all over the Elemental Nation. They are funneling weapons into Ame, and Hanzo the Salamander apparently has no problem with Akatsuki recruiting a standing army from his own village.

 _This_ , he thinks with dread, _is what has become of the heir of the Uchiha Clan_. Itachi had once been the pride and joy of their parents, doted on by their mother and praised by their father. He would walk through the streets of Konoha with Sasuke's little hand clutched in his, and shop owners would trip over themselves to serve him their best products, freshly made goods, and free treats were pressed into their hands at every opportunity. When Sasuke had ventured out to the market after the massacre, those same shop owners could barely look him in the eye. Horrified that they hadn't been able to see Itachi's madness beneath his careful veneer of politeness. And now, his ancestors would rage from the heavens at what had become of their favored sons. In the evening light that filtered through the blinds of his new office, Sasuke bowed his head to his own turmoil, Itachi's file laid open in front of him. Touya's face had been carefully blank when he handed him the file, but Keiko had asked him if he wanted her to stay. Sasuke had clenched his fists and said no, and she respected his wishes and moved out of his office without another word. He would carry Itachi's actions on his shoulders for the rest of his life, and it was his responsibility to know exactly what sort of person his brother had become.

***

He went home, weary. Hopping on rooftops instead of walking down Konoha's crowded streets with his KIB issued lanyard flaring out behind him as he took in the night air. The night markets had just opened up, filling the air with the scents of fresh fish, fried foods, and loud voices intermingling with one another. He would not be welcome there. The stall owners wouldn't take kindly to him bringing down their sales with his presence. Yet he wanted to linger, to lose himself within a crowd the way he could while traveling for Orochimaru. To try street food with sticky fingers and take in warm smiles and the furious hustling of the night markets that was the same all over the Elemental Nations and Uncharted Territories. But Konoha had raised him, and he had betrayed her. Sasuke wasn't naive enough to believe that it would be easily fixed, if ever. So, the night markets would have to wait for him to redeem himself just like everyone else.

The Uchiha district wasn't quiet tonight. The cicadas had come out this summer, and as damnably annoying civilians found them, Sasuke had spent enough time around Aburame Shino as a child in the Academy to somewhat appreciate their sounds. Buzzing cicadas, chirping crickets, and the occasional rustle of the wind through the trees and open doors. The district still looked like a decrepit thing. Haunting and haunted by Sasuke's own memories and ghosts, but tonight, they were held at bay.

Sometimes, when Sasuke's family was still alive, the district would go quiet. The Jounin and Chunin Uchiha would have been called away on missions, the younger clan children would be in bed or having sleepovers with friends outside the district. The moon would shine over them with Tsukuyomi's gentle gaze filtered through the sky to light the Naka Shrine. In the early morning, the district would sound like this very night, at peace.

Sasuke crept through the district as if he was an intruder, unwilling to disturb the peace and exhausted to his bones from his first day at KIB. It was only due to this combination of events that he somehow missed Kakashi's chakra signature in his own damn house, sitting at his kitchen table reading his ever-present porn at night.

"What are you doing here," Sasuke deadpanned.

"Checking on my little genin after his first day at a real job," mocked Kakashi. Sasuke's frown deepened just as Kakashi's eyes crinkled into a smile behind the mask.

"How did you get in? You don't even have a key."

"Oh, the door wasn't locked."

Sasuke stared at Kakashi. Kakashi smiled again. _It was basically Sakura all over again_ , he thought.

"Maa," sighed Kakashi. "You should really be more careful about locking up Sasuke; someone could break in."

"You broke in," exclaimed Sasuke, outraged.

"No, you see, the door wasn't locked, so I just walked in."

"Okay," he said, holding up a hand as if that could make Hatake Kakashi stop when he was in a mood. "Do you need anything? It's almost midnight."

"Don't be so rude Sasuke, I just came to check up on you after work; the least you could do is be grateful."

Translation; sit down so we can talk about you hunting an international terrorist organization that is after one of my students for the raging chakra demon that is sealed inside him. Sasuke really wanted to sleep, but he rarely ever got what he wanted. With a quick motion of his wrist, he activated the privacy seals that decorated the clan head's house in the Uchiha district, soft blue lettering lit up in the corners of the kitchen. He sat down in front of Kakashi. There was barely any kitchen light, dimmed by Kakashi in the face of the Uchiha compound's deep and lovely dark. Silver hair awash with gold from the lights, his usually grey eyes colored dark, hands pale, shoulders broad and hunched over, he was the brightest thing in the room.

"How was your day."

"I'm not allowed to talk about it," he retorted, "it's classified."

Gratifyingly, Kakashi's jaw dropped. Sasuke snorted at the sight of it. It was so rare for anyone to surprise the man.

"It went fine, mostly I learned that we don't know much about Akatsuki."

"It's like they came out of nowhere," admits Kakashi.

"We both know that's not true," Sasuke leaned forward. "No one just wakes up one day thinking _I'm going to kidnap all seven of the most well protected individuals in all the Elemental Nations_. There's no way these people haven't left us clues," he says, scoffing.

Kakashi puts his elbows on the table, meeting his gaze, "You were chosen because you know the most about Uncharted Territories, so what do you know?"

He's too close, and Sasuke can't help leaning back to create some distance. His kitchen is too small for Kakashi's presence.

"When I was with Orochimaru he talked a little about his time at Akatsuki," he hesitates, "he talked about meeting Itachi and all the other members. He didn't have a lot to say about them, but when he talked about Pein and Konan, it was the only time I've seen him afraid." Kakashi raises an eyebrow. "Orochimaru was one of the most horrible human beings I ever knew. He experimented on children, broke all codes of honor and dignity and loyalty," he doesn't look at Kakashi now, looking over his shoulder instead. "But he never really seemed afraid of anything. I always thought that he wasn't capable of fear-"

"Orochimaru isn't someone that I would consider brave," interrupts Kakashi.

"It's not about bravery. He was always a bit too cold, too apathetic to truly fear anyone. But he was afraid of them, and I think the more he learned about the organization, the more desperate he became in trying to leave."

"As far as I know, he didn't leave as much as he was kicked out."

"I think going after Itachi's eyes was the excuse he made for himself to get the hell out of there. Whatever their goals are, whatever the jinchuriki are for..." he trails off.

"It's not news that they're hiding something, Sasuke." Kakashi seems almost disappointed that Sasuke doesn't have anything more; his stomach twists into knots.

"We're looking at this the wrong way," Sasuke insists. "We keep looking at what they are doing, but we need to look at what they aren't."

Kakashi hums under his breath and walks to Sasuke's fridge, taking out the covered blue bowl of rice. "Walk me through it."

"The Akatsuki are using the changes in the Uncharted Territories as a way to hide whatever it is they're doing. New shadow villages are popping up all over the place; it's easy to get lost in," he argues. "So, their connection to Ame and their trade routes can be worked out. That at least makes sense. But what doesn't make sense that Akatsuki isn't swaying the jinchuriki to their cause," he points out. Kakashi starts rifling through Sasuke's fridge with abandon. "Three of the jinchuriki's are missing-nin, Gaara was treated as a persona non grata of almost his entire life. Nee Yugito and Bee are treated better than most, but Yugito was taken from her family as a child for the express purpose of being a jinchuriki. Fuu and Naruto are the only two that I could say are treated decently, and that only happened for Naruto recently." He pauses, "Also, Yagura, but he's entirely insane and trying to run Kiri into the ground."

"You know a lot about jinchuriki," Kakashi comments.

"I spent five years traveling the world and being educated by an insane though admittedly brilliant snake Sannin—Can you close the damn fridge already," he snaps defensively.

"But I want food," whines Kakashi.

"What is with you and Sakura showing up to my own house and asking me for food? Sakura was supposed to make me breakfast yesterday. Do you think she made me breakfast?" he snorts.

"Was it pancakes," remarks Kakashi with some interest. "Because her pancakes are the only edible things she can make, and she still under-cooks or burns them."

"How do fuck up pancakes," he demands.

"Don't you find it weird-"

"Shut the damn fridge already," he warns, this entire interaction is gearing them up for an uncomfortable reality check, and Kakashi's laissez-faire attitude is putting Sasuke on edge.

"Don't you find it weird that you spent five years away from any form of stability, and for some reason, _you're_ the best cook on this team?" Kakashi implores, fishing out a skillet from his cabinets.

"That is an incredibly low bar to pass," he mutters, scowling. Team Seven, for some godforsaken reason, is terrible at being functional adults. Sasuke spent his teen years on the road, so he really thinks his mistakes can be forgiven, but Kakashi grew up in _fucking ANBU,_ and the man once let a pot of boiling water burn in favor of being the first to buy the new Icha Icha book. And Sakura, in all her attempts to learn how to cook, has never actually been able to. And Naruto... _is an idiot who should be kept away from an open flame at all costs_ , thinks Sasuke, shuddering at the memories of a young Naruto attempting to make homemade ramen in his ratty pre-teen apartment and subsequently setting it on fire.

Kakashi smiles. "Is my genin student making fun of me?"

Sasuke scowls and ignores the chill running down his spine, "Are we done now." He eyes Kakashi set up warily. He hopes the man isn't going to start cooking now.

"You think that whatever they need the jinchuriki's for isn't something that they could get behind." Sasuke twists in his seat to look at Kakashi. He leans against the counter behind him. Kakashi is dangerously close now. He wishes he had something to do with his hands instead of holding the empty air of the room.

"I think," whispers Sasuke, "that there is a difference between a jinchuriki and a Biju, and that one can survive without the other."

His statement stills the room and Kakashi. Sasuke breathes out slow and steady and turns to look to the living room instead of Kakashi's face.

"That's a dangerous statement to make."

"There is no other explanation for why Akatsuki has such a casual disregard for the hosts." At least not any plausible explanations. Akatsuki hadn't cared that Gaara had nearly died during their kidnapping attempt. According to the reports Sasuke read earlier, they only promised to come back for him. When intelligence had come in about a new host earlier that year from Kiri missing-nin, Akatsuki hadn't been concerned about what happened to the old one either. The three missing-nin hosts hadn't made any moves to confront the organization directly, implying that Akatsuki had the firepower to back up their absurd goals at the very least. Yet, Kakashi clearly doesn't like his answer.

Sasuke can barely think either way. Kakashi is standing so close; if Sasuke moved just a little more, if he twisted in his chair to face the man, he would brush the uniform's fabric of Kakashi's pants. He stands right behind Sasuke, and a hand grips Sasuke's shoulder tight like a warning. Kakashi is a livewire of emotion held so tightly that Sasuke can almost taste ozone on his tongue, and is reminded of snapping sugar peas in his nana-abu's garden as a child. It's too much for him. It's too soon after Sasuke's talk with Sakura, hoping to form a new relationship with Kakashi and hopefully giving up on all his feelings. It's too soon to be in such a small space with Hatake fucking Kakashi at his back.

 _Do you know that this is the first time you've touched me since I came back,_ he wondered, heart beating in his chest so loud he knew Kakashi must have noticed his rapid pulse. Kakashi squeezes his shoulder once more and then disappears from view. Leaving Sasuke to shakily exhale in a room that now smells like burnt ozone from Kakashi's chakra, once again listening to chirping and humming cicadas.

_***_

_Lightning is four times as hot as the sun_ , Kakashi had told when Sasuke was only 12 years old. There had been cicadas then, too; they had come surprisingly early to Konoha, and Sasuke remembered Sakura's shriek whenever one got too close. The air had been humid, his shirt stuck to his back wet and uncomfortable, and with the Chunin Exam only a month away, Kakashi had shown Sasuke how to wield lightning from the sky in his small mortal hands. _Your chakra affinity will let you manifest it outside of your body, but it is always inside you. And if you can't hold on to it if you can't control your emotions,_ he pressed _, it may destroy you._ His gaze had been a molten silver, and Sasuke remembered gazing back at Kakashi, understanding for the first time why men and women, civilians and shinobi alike, stood up when Kakashi walked into a room. His gaze was heavy, and it made him want to stand up taller, even if Kakashi himself was slouching in front of him. Kakashi had gripped his shoulders tight _, don’t let it destroy you, Sasuke._

***

 _It was too late_ , he thought, after Kakashi had slipped out of his house, a whisper in the wind, settling down in his bed, heart still thumping like a rabbit's foot on forest floors. It was far too late, not when he was so affected by just Kakashi's hand on him. So comfortable under lightning that Kakashi's storm felt like home, every familiarity of his chakra rushing back all at once.


	2. "I am searching now for signs and wonder" Alan Brilliant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this picks up right after the last chapter but it goes through a month of working at KIB. We learn more about Akatsuki and Hanzo and Ame, and get to see Kakashi as Hokage-Elect. We also get to see Naruto get the drop on Sasuke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments and kudos and bookmarks it made me so happy. I'm actually surprised by how much I loved knowing that ya'll enjoyed it, and it made me less nervous overall so thank you. I do read you comments and I respond as well so feel free to leave more! The title of this chapter is taken from an Alan Brilliant poem called Searching for Signs. Also, Sasuke may seem like completely out of character but I would remind people that he was never really given the character development he needed. He spent five years away from Konoha, away from the constant reminder of all that he lost, and was mentored by a Sannin. It makes sense that he is very intelligence focused, and is able to make crazy connections. He can't have spent five years away and came back exactly the same. He may seem soft, but I really wanted to create a character that was kind of awkward and maybe sarcastic, but teen Sasuke uses his attitude as a defense mechanism, the point of growing up is being able to put those defense mechanisms down in order to show vulnerability and grow as a person. Also, Kakashi, yay

When nana-abu had taken Sasuke inside the shrine, it was like stepping into another world. A large stone slab of liquid night stood in the center of the shrine; the circular room seemed to orbit it. The walls were covered in a mosaic of stories, Sasuke could see the dark blue of the sea and a serpentine figure making its way out to neighboring land, strokes of an orange-pink sunset fell underneath a sky full of stars. The legends on the walls made the small room feel cavernous, the tiles underneath their feet were somehow warm, the shrine itself felt like something sacred, something had thrummed in the air raising the fine hairs on his arms, and nana-abu had smiled at Sasuke's wide-eyed wonderment.

"This is the Naka Shrine. It's where we keep all the legends of the clan, Sasuke."

"All the stories?"

Nana-abu's eyes had crinkled in amusement at his tone. "All the stories."

Sasuke had taken a second look at the shrine walls. He hadn't been able to see any books on the walls, just pretty pictures of dragons and people that looked faintly like him, with their black hair and deep blue eyes, clear only in sunlight. He hadn't understood and told nana-abu so.

The man had smiled wider, white teeth stark in the dimmed light of the shrine. He had taken three steps to the right and had placed his hand against an image of a blood-red dragon; it was serpentine, but with wings so large that it extended across the entire room; their eyes were gold like the strange whiskers that grew from its snout. Nana-abu placed his hand on the dragon's eyes and pushed gently, a small click could be heard, and Sasuke almost shouted when a small door appeared from the walls, faint lines of separation could seem from the previous image arranged in the shrine, marking the outline of the door.

"Woah."

"Yes," chuckled nana-abu, "shall we see where this leads Sasuke?"

"It's like a secret comp-art-ment," Sasuke had enunciated. Thrilled at discovering a secret door in his own district, it was like the spy cartoon he would watch with his cousins.

"It is a secret compartment." It was only years later that Sasuke could look back at this memory and see the indulgent tone for what it was. An adult, hopelessly fond of the antics of a small child in their family.

The door held a ladder going down, down, down underneath the shrine. Nana-abu had picked Sasuke up again and carried him carefully, tucking Sasuke underneath his chin like he was a small baby and not five years old. Sasuke wanted to protest, but the ladder seemed to go on forever, and there was no light to be seen. He had instead clutched at the cotton shirt in front of him and looked around the darkness until small lights could be seen. He gasped at what they revealed.

Underneath the small Naka Shrine was a veritable library, a large room filled to the bring with books, lined wall to wall, some spines were completely unmarked by titles, and some books were stacked on the floor or just indiscriminately splayed out on desktops and comfortable looking chairs. Sasuke had scrambled down from his human perch, delighted by this secret discovery. Lanterns hung from the walls, bathing the room in a soft yellow glow, casting shadows on what seemed to be a staircase leading down to somewhere Sasuke didn't know.

"Welcome," Nana-abu had said, gently pushing Sasuke further into the room, "to the clan library. It's where we keep all our stories."

***

His landline rung at four in the morning, which was really just his luck, especially considering the day he had. Honestly, it was more of a relief than anything else; Sasuke hadn't been able to sleep since Kakashi had left him. He blinks blearily at the phone in his hands, not to say that Kakashi had left him specifically. It was more like the man had just left after hearing Sasuke's thoughts on Akatsuki.

"Hello."

"Good morning, did you have a conversation with the Hokage-Elect in the past four hours since I've seen you last," drawls Ino. Sasuke runs a hand through his hair, picking out a stubborn knot as he does, which does nothing to improve his mood given the circumstances.

"Morning Ino," he yawns and presses the phone to his ear while burrowing deeper into his bedsheets. "I'm gonna need you to repeat everything you just said, slowly."

Ino huffs over the phone, "I just got done with a call with your sensei who is the Hokage-Elect, our current Hokage, the Jounin Commander, and Naruto about revising the protective measures around Naruto." Sasuke's gaze flickers to the left of him, where a weasel shaped clock set to ring an hour from now had been knocked over in Sasuke's sleep clumsy attempts to get the phone. "Apparently, the Hokage-Elect had a conversation with you about Akatsuki's goals and any preliminary insights you had. And during this conversation, you told him that Akatsuki could be looking for the Biju and not necessarily care about the jinchuriki's themselves, sound familiar?"

He waits, "Sasuke? Are you there?"

"I mean, I'm definitely listening. I just wasn't sure if you wanted to role-play both sides of this conversation." He hears her scoff, "When I came home, Kakashi was already here and just asked me for my opinion on the Akatsuki's goals. And since he is the Hokage-Elect and therefore outranks all of us, I thought it would be best to tell him what I know." He sits up to lean against the headboard, hoping against hope that Ino will get to the point soon.

"This isn't a secure line, come to the bureau, and we'll talk."

He glances out his window with a squint and sighs loudly. "Alright, see you in a minute."

"Don't keep us waiting. Touya is here too." She hangs up, and all Sasuke is left with is the dial tone.

***

KIB is precisely the same as it was less than six hours ago when Sasuke had been working. There is no discernable difference between night and day, and that's how Sasuke knows that something, somewhere, has gone down. It can't be about the Akatsuki, seeing as their task force is being kept on the down-low from any sniffing investigative reporters and spies.

 _Well_ , he thinks wryly, _I'll find out soon enough._

Ino and Touya are waiting for him in Ino's office; the vase behind Ino is empty of flowers, leaving a large gap in the room's dialogue. When they were both Academy students, and when Sasuke's parents had still been alive, he had visited the Yamanaka district. In some ways, it felt like home. There were rioting colors everywhere, flowers perfumed the air something sweet and littered the pathways leading to the Yamanaka Bazaar. Every bouquet had been a message, every flower pressed into his hands a greeting. As a child from the warm south, he had felt at home in the loud chatter and haggling that permeating Ino's home. Seeing her quiet, contemplative, worried, and without flowers is as much of an anathema to him as it must be for her. Yamanaka's surround themselves with flowers and people. It's why they own so many flower shops all over Konoha, and seeing Ino's office without them is already a warning sign.

Touya is perched on the edge of Ino's desk, chewing his lips while he looks over a variety of commendation medals and certificates on Ino's walls, blond hair an obvious mess in comparison to Ino's ever sleek ponytail.

"What's happening?" asks Sasuke, gesturing to outside the office as he closes the door. Touya's head snaps up to look at him.

"What evidence do you have that Akatsuki is hunting the Biju for their own sake?"

"What evidence do you have that they're not?"

Ino snorts, "You mean besides them declaring that they are hunting the jinchuriki?" She waves a hand at him, and Sasuke sinks gratefully onto the couch. He shakes his head at her answer.

"Let's be honest here, the majority of our intelligence on Akatsuki is based on a whole bunch of presumptions that we are trying to prove right rather than false." It's a dangerous place to be in the intelligence world. You want to find observable patterns in intelligence, and Akatsuki hasn't given them much to work off of. "My guesses are as good as yours. The main thing is that Akatsuki is after all the hosts and not just the available ones."

"Walk me through it," says Touya, stretching to his feet in front of them. Sasuke has to blink away the image of Kakashi saying the same thing to him last night.

"All Hidden Villages want power, and capabilities dictate intent, you know this, I know this." Sasuke is patient in his explanation. He needs his captains to back his hunch. Ino nods along, propping her feet on her desk.

"It's not unheard of a village kidnapping another jinchuriki for their own advantages. It almost happened to Uzumaki Kushina when she was a kid." Sasuke carefully doesn't think of another Uzumaki, the last known Uzumaki, in this Village with the same Biju his mother hosted sealed inside him. "If Akatsuki wanted to get _a_ jinchuriki, they could go after the three missing-nins who are hosts. They've got the least protection available to them since they left their villages. But Akatsuki going after all nine of them is unheard of and insane. It speaks to a clear desire to destabilize not just a single hidden village but all of us." He leans forward, as does Ino and Touya from across the room. Sasuke licks his lips, mouth suddenly dry. "The whole point of the jinchuriki system is to provide Hidden villages with an avenue of mutually assured destruction, to make sure the Biju never walk freely again, then going after all nine of the hosts..." he trails off.

Like Kakashi, Ino and Touya have gone perfectly still. Ino's feet drop to the floor, and she breathes out, slow and steady, to re-orientate herself, just like the Academy taught them, and finishes his train of thought.

"Going after all nine of them means that they need their Biju and apparently want a new political order, they may be sealing the Biju into their top lieutenants to keep the power to themselves, or maybe they're just fucking unleashing the Biju, _fuck_." She twists her hair around her hand and tugs absentmindedly.

"We still don't have any confirmation of this information; it's barely intelligence," interrupts Touya, but even he is pale, eyes tight at the corners. Sasuke leans back on the sofa and mimics Ino's breathing, slow and steady.

"Honestly, it is the only thing that sort of makes sense about their goals," Sasuke mumbles.

"If this is true, then Akatsuki means to plunge the world into a darkness not seen since the pre-warring states era," warns Touya, fingers twitching by his sides. Sasuke would bet money that Touya is a smoker. All the men of his generation are. Sasuke's father was a smoker.

"Things don't stop being true just because you don't want them to be Captain."

"And the intelligence that you confirm after making an assumption doesn't mean shit, Sasuke."

"Either way," interrupts Ino, "this is something to look into."

"What happened at the meeting with Kakashi and Naruto?" he asks.

"We have to re-organize the protection around Naruto if the Akatsuki don't particularly care about keeping him alive after all," says Ino.

Sasuke winces at the statement. It only confirmed his belief in what Kakashi would do given the information that he had. Naruto is Kakashi's only connection to the Yondaime, Kakashi's former sensei, on top of being Kakashi's own student and quite possibly his successor, if Naruto and Jiraiya have their way. "How did Naruto take it," he questions, because if the blond had rattle doff some bullshit about being able to protect himself just fine, Sasuke would have to pummel him into the ground himself. _Sakura would help,_ he thinks.

"He was a bit upset, but your sensei and Jiraiya got him to back down from singlehandedly taking on the Akatsuki himself," says Touya, almost laughing at the look on Sasuke's face. He is definitely going to punch Naruto in his stupid face for this. Five years of being on the run with the image of Naruto with a hole punched through his chest had left marks on both of them, Sasuke was far more protective of his teammates then he had any right to be, but Sakura and Naruto were far more possessive of him and his whereabouts in the Village since he got back as well.

He shakes his head to clear his memories. "By the way, why is KIB so awake right now."

"There was an ANBU squad that went missing in the Haran Bay, and everyone is trying to get them back." He blinks at Touya and Ino. Touya looks entirely at ease with his statement while Ino tilts her head sympathetically at Sasuke.

"What the ever-living fuck guys. That's the kind of thing that you lead with."

"We had other things to talk about first," remarks Touya.

Sasuke turned to Ino, "How do we lose an entire ANBU squad in Lightening Country? What were they even doing there.”?

"There have been some border skirmishes between Lightening and Frost Country that we wanted to get intel on, so they were supposed to be incognito in the Haran Bay, but they went off their comms a couple hours ago." Ino waves a perfectly manicured hand at him, "It's not really our team's purview through Rin and Keiko are working on it right now. This just walked in the door Sasuke, nobody knows anything, but we'll get our updates later."

"KIB moves fast kid, every single minute just starts off with a new disaster," mutters Touya, fists clenched in his pockets.

Ino claps her hands together, "Anyway, you still have to finish up your readings on Hanzo, right, Sasuke?" Sasuke nods. "Get started on that. I want a report on his dealings with Akatsuki and why The Salamander is involved at all, on mine or Touya's desk by the end of the month."

A report like that would require Sasuke to comb through all the materials they had on Hanzo and Amegakure itself. The region was a blank mark on any given map and apparently housing Akatsuki on top of it. All intelligence for Ame had deteriorated in the decades after Hanzo had defeated the Sannin and given the three their moniker. "You know this is my second day, right?" he asks, only a little bit sarcastic. Touya throws an arm around Sasuke's shoulder and laughs right in his ear. Sasuke grimaces and pushes the man away. Still chortling, Touya lets him go,

"Welcome to KIB, kid."

***

Sasuke goes to his office and immediately stubs his toe against one of the many boxes of files stacked in his office. It is vaguely reminiscent of his nana-abu library's filing system, meaning not at all organized and haphazardly spewed all over the room. Keiko and Touya had a Chunin bring in all of KIB's files on Hanzo and Ame at Sasuke's behest. He rolled up his sleeves, green veins prominent under office lighting, and started dumping files on the floor to organize them better.

After about three or so hours of reading reports of dwindling details on Hanzo after the end of the Second Shinobi World War, Yuto knocks on his door. His tie is skewed, which wouldn't seem odd on a man as dynamic as Yuto, but his eyes are hard, and he opens the door to Sasuke's office just a little bit too fast to be normal.

"What's up, man?" Sasuke calls from the floor, making notes on numerous illegible handwritten reports, glancing up at the man's abrupt entrance.

"You were briefed on the missing ANBU in Haran Bay?"

"Did something happen to them? Ino said we would get updates later today."

"The squad was sent to take photographs on the aftermath of border skirmishes between Frost and Lightning Country. We thought Lightning was trying to expand into Frost Country, except while they were doing that, the squad went dark, off comms," clarifies Yuto. Sasuke hums in acknowledgment; he's not hearing anything new. "It's been about six hours since we last had contact. Two hours ago, the Godaime and Hokage-Elect deployed a team we had in Hotsprings Country to rescue them," Yuto pauses his report.

Sasuke frowns, "What happened, Yuto."

Yuto takes a breath as if to steel himself. "They encountered traces of two Akatsuki lieutenants while coasting along Lightning."

"Fucking hell," mutters Sasuke and quickly gets to his feet, snagging his jacket before walking over to Yuto, who is holding open the door for him. "We're in the situation room with the Hokage-Elect then."

"Yeah."

"Great," he mutters under his breath, "it's my second day at KIB, and look what happens. Should have told Ino no when I had the chance." He shrugs on his jacket and tugs at the lanyard on his neck in annoyance.

Yuto has the gall to laugh at him, "I doubt Ino could be convinced to let you go. She advocated hard for you to join the team, and from what I heard this morning from Touya," Yuto says, tilting his head to one side, "you've already got some theories on what Akatsuki wants. So, it wasn't a total waste."

"I'm glad I meet your standards, Yuto," mocks Sasuke, again the man only laughs. There is something comfortable about him even now when Konoha shinobi's lives hang in the balance, and Sasuke remembers that Yuto used to be a hunter nin; he, out of anyone on the team, knew how to play a waiting game. The older shinobi steers him through a dizzying array of hallways, staircases, and nondescript doors until they finally reach a long empty corridor leading to a metal door. Yuto cuts his thumb on his canines and presses the well of blood against an intricate seal placed beside the door. There is a slight hiss of metal, and Sasuke steps into the KIB situation room for the first time.

He is immediately taken aback by how big the room is. Monitors hang suspended on the walls and projecting blown-up images of the Haran Bay, Lightning, and Frost Country. Several screens are dominated by profiles of Hidan and Kakuzu of the Akatsuki, the two individuals closest to figuring out immortality on this planet now that Orochimaru is dead by Sasuke's own hand. His mouth parts a little at the swarm of people already engaged in a vigorous debate at the head of a long mahogany table. And there, surrounded by the best military minds of three different generations, is Kakashi. His hitae-tae is pushed up against his forehead instead of the usual tilt, his Mangakyo a perpetual swirling pinwheel vivid even in the dim lights of the room. Kakashi glances up as he and Yuto enter, and the heat of Kakashi's chakra, a mix of wild lightning, and the burning hearth of the Mangakyo wash over Sasuke like a wave. A shudder runs down his spine.

"You cold?" asks Yuto.

"I'm fine." He feels warm.

The clack of heels behind them is the warning he gets to Ino's arrival. Her hair flares out behind her like a banner, obscuring the forms of Keiko and Rin from view. Touya stands with her, a hard look in his eye and a sword attached to his hip.

Ino hip checks him gently and whispers in his ear, tone wry, "Remember when I said this wasn't our purview." Sasuke doesn't get a chance to respond as Kakashi immediately asks Touya for a situation update.

"Sir, we have a Hidan and Kakuzu of Akatsuki in the line of sight of our rescue team in Haran Bay. They have a line of visual and say they are prepared to engage with foreign enemies if need be."

Kakashi turns to Ino, for once no longer slouching, "What would you recommend?"

"We shouldn't engage," she says, prompt in her delivery. "We don't know enough about Hidan and Kakuzu to accurately gauge their skill level as opponents, and this team was outfitted for a rescue and retrieval. The goal of this mission is to rescue a six-man ANBU squad in Lightning Country, and I would bet that the reason they went dark is that they spotted Akatsuki just like we did."

"And we can't ask Lightening to help out since we were spying on them without permission."

"As opposed to spying on them with their permission," Sasuke quips, unable to help himself. Touya and Yuto both snort in agreement.

Kakashi's lips twitch upward beneath his mask. "What would you suggest we do instead, Analyst Uchiha?"

He startles inwardly as the room turns to hear him out but swallows down the anxiety. This is nothing compared to holding Kakashi's gaze, and Sasuke isn't willing to disappoint his former teacher in front of people who will one day call Kakashi their Hokage.

"We don't engage, and we wait out the Akatsuki. Chances are that they are spying on Lightning as well since their next target appears to be Killer Bee, the Raikage's brother and one of Kumogakure's jinchuriki's. Our rescue team has a job to do, and we don't want to leave our ANBU soldiers behind," his eyes flicker to Kakashi. Rule number one: those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash. "The original ANBU probably went dark to avoid the terrible twins over there," he says, jabbing a thumb to the monitors still displaying profiles like a demented version of a school report of Hidan and Kukuzu's progress as Akatsuki lieutenants. "We should trust the squad to know what to do and have our rescue team get them out of the damn bay already."

"That's probably how we're going to do it, ladies and gentlemen." Kakashi looks over the room with a critical eye. He turns to a dark-haired man beside him, "Give the team the go-ahead order to step into Lightning land."

The man leans forward to speak into a secure comms line, "Hokage-Elect gave the go order," he says, in clipped efficient tones. The sound of static rises through the room before a responding confirmation comes through the phone. From there, the entire room listens to the sound of footsteps over the ground, the team running at full speed towards their targets.

"Package spotted," intones the on the ground captain. The room tenses in unison. Sasuke's temple pulses. It is the space between knowing you have your target in sight and actually getting it that can be the worst to wait for her, though making sure everyone gets back to Konoha safely is going to be challenging as well.

"Package acquired."

Sasuke and Ino let out identical sighs of relief. Light chatter breaks out over the room as the tensions dissipate. Kakashi is the only person in the room still tense, straight-backed as he rarely is. Sasuke knows him well enough to know that the man won't relax until the rescue and ANBU team touches Konoha soil. It was the same when Sasuke was a teenager. Kakashi had a strange sort of hypervigilance outside the Village that came from growing up during the Third Shinobi World War, a soldier on the frontlines far too young. Kakashi catches him looking and nods, "How do we want to tell Lightning Country that Akatsuki is on their border without telling them we were spying on them."

"We don't," says Sasuke immediately. Touya and Ino turn to him.

"Walk me through it, kid," Touya asks.

"Hotsprings Country is neutral, their shinobi population is not combat-oriented, we can backchannel through them and get our intel to Lightning Country without them knowing it's from us." Kakashi raises an eyebrow at him.

"Will that work?"

"They stayed neutral during all three world wars, they know how to do this, and I can arrange it," Sasuke shrugs in response to Kakashi's incredulity.

"Man, I love neutral countries," sighs Yuto.

"Dead useful," adds Rin, grinning at the room.

"Well, as long as you don't want to live in one," drawls Keiko, and Ino bursts into laughter. She turns to him. "You can go back Sasuke, make sure to meet with the Hotsprings ambassador. Good work, though."

He shrugs, uncomfortable under scrutiny, "I didn't do much."

Ino raises her eyebrows, "You provided a plan of non-engagement and a way to get our intel to a foreign head of state without revealing that we were spying on them."

"Take the compliment, kid," adds Touya. Sasuke only grimaces; he doesn't come from a family known to take compliments well. Niceties were reserved for children and special events, and close family, formal settings like this one were not the place for it. But he nods and turns to salute Kakashi, placing a hand over his breast, the mark of loyalty for the Hokage, not the Hokage-Elect. Kakashi doesn't as much blink at the slip of etiquette, but the incredulous gazes of the room cause heat to prickle at Sasuke's cheekbones and neck, making his sight almost hazy with embarrassment.

He leaves the room. The metal doors close behind him with an obligatory hiss, and Sasuke blinks at the sudden brightness of the hallway. He allows himself to linger in his memories of Kakashi, with the sight of him burned into Sasuke's mind, broad-shouldered and straight back, authority radiating off him in waves and Mangakyo spinning idly. A shudder runs down his spine, and heat pools in the pit of his stomach, eyes a little hazy with the implicit knowledge of Kakashi's approval of Sasuke's work brings the faintest smile to his lips. It grows until he's walking down the corridors of KIB, grinning like a madman and absolutely scaring the Chunin receptionist he encounters on the way back to his office. Giddy in a way he hadn't been since he was younger.

***

He meets with Ambassador Asai Amarante, who has been representing Hotsprings Country in Konoha since the Sandaime. She is tall with a beautiful tangle of curls that is a mane down her back. She doesn't look her age, and Sasuke is momentarily taken aback by her buoyant attitude. But she is extremely competent and promises to get their intel on the Akatsuki sighting to Lightning Country. Basically, they've all decided to pretend that Hotsprings shinobi themselves found the intel. Due to the country being neutral, Hotsprings chose to disseminate the information to Lightning out of goodwill and concern for Killer Bee, who is surprisingly fond of Hotsprings' tourist scene and a well-known figure in the region. The meeting goes well, but Sasuke leaves feeling like he just met the female and civilian version of Maito Guy. He resolves to meet up with the woman on his own time when he can.

After that, he goes back to his office and again immerses himself in the reports about Hanzo and his thoughts, not surprisingly, go to Orochimaru.

The man had been given the name Sannin after Hanzo's brutal takedown of Orochimaru and his team. After intelligence had reached Otogakure that The Akatsuki had set up shop in Ame, the Sannin had forbidden any Oto shinobi from going into Ame. It had surprised Sasuke that the man could feel protective of his shinobi forces and work to protect them, instead of just using them for cannon fodder. It had been the start of a series of surprises with the Sannin and the beginning of a complicated and twisted mentorship as well.

Six years ago, Hanzo sent seven genin teams to the Konoha Chunin Exams, it was a surprising move from the old war hawk, but it did make a great deal of sense. The Chunin Exams were always a good place to spy on your allies without being too overt about it. If you had genins doing the spying, then getting captured held less inherent risk, most Hidden Villages didn't torture children. Before retreating from the world about a decade before the Exams, Hanzo had been known as a peace advocate. Sasuke paused and looked over his notes again. Hanzo had been known as a peace advocate for most of his life; what changed a man so drastically that he would become a known war hawk instead? Hanzo had plunged Amegakure into a civil war with his brutish isolationist policies, but the reports say that the city started almost two decades ago, so what happened back then?

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and went to the whiteboard hanging in his office and tried to figure out a timeline. Sasuke was 19 years old, and he had been born in late July, about a year after the Third Shinobi War had ended; Itachi had been a young child then and already a good soldier. Sasuke made another tick mark on his whiteboard. The Yondaime had taken the Hokage hat and was ushering in a new peace for the world. And Ame...had been elbow deep in their civil war; Sasuke's eyes widened at the realization. Ame had gone into a civil war during the Third World War, which caused them to recede from fighting. That was around the time that intelligence from Ame truly went to shit. He wrote _Ame Civil War_ , circled it, and placed a question mark in red marker next to it on the whiteboard.

***

Here's what happens during the rest of Sasuke's first month at KIB:

  1. He stays in constant communication with Ambassador Asai's office and eventually does take up the woman's offer for tea. She invites him to her private residence, and they spend a good couple of hours talking about how Hotsprings country had managed to stay neutral while having a Hidden Village. It mostly amounts to a constitutional requirement to not take combat-oriented missions and having the economic advantage of natural hot springs, hence the name.
  2. He gets lunch with Touya, and Ino, Yuto, often. Yuto knows more about profiling than he does as a former hunter nin for ANBU and takes Sasuke under his wing on Sasuke's fact-finding into Hanzo and Ame. Keiko and Rin drop by to discuss the structure of Shadow Villages and the power imbalance of having new Hidden Villages pop up, namely that they don't have jinchuriki's.
  3. Akira drops by three weeks in, and Sasuke learns that she is just as vicious and antagonistic as she was in their first meeting. Though she is like that with everyone and Sasuke learns not to take offense after the third time she implies that Ino only got her job thanks to her father's influence, to her face. He also learns that Akira had been part of the team bringing back the ANBU squad from Lightning when the rest of them had been in the situation room, and he grudgingly decides to respect her for it.
  4. He learns a lot about Hanzo and Amegakure, and the Akatsuki. None of it is good, so he isn't surprised that Touya tells him that he will meet with him, Ino, Kakashi, and Nara Shikaku to give his report.



So, he goes to see Kakashi in his office. The Hokage-Elect is required to start learning how to be the Village's leader by spending two to five years effectively being the second in command in Konoha's hierarchy. While the Godaime has ultimate authority and the Hokage-Elect doesn't even have a constitutional requirement to exist, it was deemed necessary by the Sandaime’s generation to start training the young leader early because in the event of the Hokage's demise; the new leader shouldn't be left floundering. Though the last person to be properly trained by the sitting Hokage before Kakashi was the Yondaime, and now his student, Hatake Kakashi, was taking up the hat.

Kakashi's office is located in the Hokage Tower. Sasuke has to walk past three different security checkpoints, two of which were most certainly because of his criminal past, to be let in, and when he steps into the room, his breath is taken away. Sasuke comes from a great clan, one the oldest in the worlds that gave the shinobi world warriors like Uchiha Izuna, his ancestor, Mikoto, his mother, Shisui, his brother-cousin, and so many more. They built the very foundation of Konoha with the Senju and spent the rest of their time protecting it. Their spice markets once rivaled Wind Country's, and the images of dragons are forever associated with Uchiha in the popular culture of their time. Sasuke knows greatness, but stepping into Kakashi's office makes him feel small.

The woods are dark and richly polished. There is a massive array of books on one wall about law and history and military tactics. The fundamental philosophies of a Hidden Village are lettered on the spines of books, there is a bust of Senju Tobirama, and a portrait of the Yondaime mounted on the wall behind Kakashi. And there is Kakashi.

Sitting on a straight-backed chair with one leg thrown over the other, speaking to Shikaku. The windows shine a light directly on to the man, giving his hair a strange otherworldly sheen, almost metallic. He has his arms crossed against his chest and even under the Jounin uniform, or maybe because of the Jounin uniform, Sasuke can see his biceps straining the fabric. The curve of his broad shoulders is apparent as he leans forward in a conversation, and Sasuke already knows that he'll dream of running his hands over Kakashi's back. He will dream about how Kakashi's hands make quick gestures, expressive where the man's face isn't. He'll think about the cut of Kakashi's jaw underneath his mask and heat prickles the back of Sasuke's neck when he imagines gentling that line with a kiss on the man's jaw. Instead of letting that image fester, Sasuke greets Kakashi with a salute instead. Because Sasuke cannot help himself, he once again gives the Hokage loyalty salute with a hand on his chest, instead of the customary Hokage-Elect greeting. He nods at his captains, sitting on comfortable sofas in the center of the room.

Shikaku turns to him, "Morning, soldier."

"Hello, sir."

"You should enjoy that Shikaku," drawls Kakashi. "It took him almost a decade to call me sir." The Jounin Commander quirks his lips at that, and Sasuke can only be grateful that this man can look at him with good humor. Six years ago, Sasuke hurt people very dear to Shikaku when leaving Konoha. Sasuke had been afraid of what his life would be like when he re-instated into the Shinobi Armed Forces. He hurt the children of some incredibly well respected and high ranked people, along with his best friends, and he had always worried about retaliation from them. But at no point had he been forced into an uncomfortable meeting with Nara Shikaku or forced to make an unsanctioned visit to T&I with Yamanaka Inoichi. He wasn't even barred from Akimichi owned restaurants, not that he would impose himself in that space anyway.

"Well, you know how genins are," remarks Touya with a teasing grin. Kakashi gives a sharp bark of laughter while Ino snorts delicately; she is probably the only woman he knows who can. It was a running joke in the Armed Forces that only one of Hatake Kakashi's students ever ranked beyond genin, Sakura. Sasuke and Naruto were both genins and had to have special permission given by the Hokage to take high ranked missions. Or at least Naruto took high ranked missions; Sasuke wasn't entrusted with anything higher than a C ranked mission in terms of confidentiality. On the bright side, Konoha's genins were familiar with him at the C rank mission desk, and he got a discount when he hires them to restore the Uchiha district.

"Take a seat, Sasuke." Kakashi motions to the couch for him to sit. "You know why we're having this meeting?"

"I'm sure my report raised some questions and concerns from the people in this room."

Shikaku only raises an eyebrow, "You're lucky that it was only the people in this room who saw. Your report is the type of thing that gets people laughed out of intelligence work." Sasuke internally flushes and reigns in his sudden urge to snap back. Orochimaru had spent five years constantly, constantly taunting Sasuke. Bringing up his family, reminding him of how much better Itachi was when he was Sasuke, recounting tales of Itachi's fights during the Sannin's time at Akatsuki. It was the perfect bait, and Orochimaru had pressed at Sasuke's open wounds until he had stopped bleeding because he was empty of anything to give. And then Orochimaru had fashioned Sasuke into someone who could look Nara Shikaku in the eye, and know that the other man kept a mental tally of all his sins, and still give his report. The shame of knowing that he still hadn't apologized to Shikamaru, Chouji, Lee, or Kiba or Neiji was still crushing, and it colored Sasuke's every interaction with the men, but he would push through it.

"You don't want to be known as the guy with all the crazy theories, kid."

Sasuke turns to Touya, the man is sitting while shuffling Sasuke's report on Ame in his hands. "I'm fine with it as long these crazy theories are right."

"Alright," Touya sighs, tired and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Walk us through it."

Sasuke placed his elbows on his knees, threaded his fingers together, and rubbed his right thumb across his left palm, a nervous habit he picked up in Oto. "A month ago, when I started going through the reports on Ame, I became interested in when exactly we started losing quality intelligence."

"Six years ago, during the Chunin Exams," remarks Shikaku. "They went dark, completely."

"But the intelligence started going bad a little over two decades ago during the Third World War. Towards the end, Ame dissolved into a Civil War."

"Obviously, this would imply disruption," Ino points out.

"Yeah, but look at the reports, and I think you'll realize we don't have a definite answer as to why a Civil War broke out."

"Sasuke, we're talking about a small landlocked country that barely has a functioning Daimyo court and whose Hidden Village has broken the economic brunt of having an isolationist war hawk living incredibly close to Uncharted Territories," Kakashi murmurs, tilting his head curiously. "It pretty much explains itself."

"Yeah, but that doesn't completely account for the massive transformation of Hanzo himself. He used to be an advocate for shinobi world peace. We're talking about a man who had a salamander poison sack embedded into him as a child. He was made into a weapon and has to wear a gas mask on his face at all times to avoid killing his own citizens. It was from that place where Hanzo decided to work towards peace. He isn't the type of person to let circumstances bring him down." Sasuke gets up and starts pacing the room, trying to convey his message. "Also, don't you find it weird that we can't pinpoint any specific group that went up against Hanzo? That's not normal. Something happened to spark the Civil War and to change Hanzo. I couldn't figure out what, though, until I met with Ambassador Asai last week."

Shikaku looks at him, dubiously, "The ambassador from Hotsprings Country?"

"Yes, sir. She was instrumental in getting our intelligence to Lightning in the aftermath of the Haran Bay incident about a month ago. We sat down for a chai a week ago, and she mentioned that she had spent some time in Ame several decades ago."

"When was this?" asked Kakashi. Sasuke grins at the man. He knows that the man appreciates having information fall into his lap like this. A puzzle piece being put together right in front of him.

"July 1st, the day the war broke out in Ame."

"What the hell," breathes Ino. Leaning forward as Sasuke stands in the front of the room, hands still clasped in front of him, thumb running against his palm.

Sasuke laughs a bit, "She's lived a life. But the point is she was getting ready to leave Ame after what was a very productive meeting of having Hotsprings country expand the tourist scene in Ame and talk about mineral mining. They found a bunch of natural hot springs along the western border of Ame, and it was supposed to be a huge boon to their economy. She hadn't even known until Hanzo told her they were keeping it close to their chest since, you know, there was a war going on. But she leaves the meeting and asks Hanzo what he's going to do now. And Hanzo says I'm going to meet with a group of young peace advocates. They were advocating for a peace accord to be signed between Ame and the other warring Villages and that Hanzo himself take radical steps to create more democratic intuitional change in Ame."

"What was the group?" asks Touya. But Sasuke can see Kakashi's narrowed eye, and he knows the man is following Sasuke's train of thought perfectly.

"Ambassador Asai never got their names because a couple hours later, she had to flee the country due to the riots. She didn't understand what was happening at first, but one of her legislative aides came running into the room, saying no one could find Hanzo. He went to his meeting with the young activists, and then they left the Hokage House of Ame and took the meeting outside of the Village."

"That's unusual. I can't think of a meeting with peace advocates that would start off so high profile and move to, what, more neutral territory, you think?" asks Ino. Biting her lip in concentration. Sunlight from the windows transforms her hair into a halo.

"When we were in negotiations with Iwa during the ceasefire period towards the end of the war, they all happened outside the village because we were worried that tensions would rise and break, and we didn't want the civilian population to be a victim of it," says Kakashi. "But the Iwa delegation wasn't exactly a peaceful group."

"So, here's what we have," lists Sasuke. "A peaceful group that is very involved with the civilian population gets enough popularity that Hanzo the Salamander agrees to meet with them. But something happens in that meeting, and their location changes because the peaceful group of activists may not be so peaceful. Something happens during that meeting, and hours later, a civil war breaks out."

"This is pissing me off kid, what is the connection between the group and the civil war?"

"And what does this have to do with the Akatsuki? Which is what we asked you to look into?" Ino raises an eyebrow at him, clearly frustrated at her own lack of confusion. But it isn't Sasuke who answers the question; it's Kakashi.

"He thinks the group is Akatsuki."

While the room is stunned into silence, Sasuke takes over again. "Asai put me into contact with someone in a refugee village on the outskirts of Fire Country, a miner. This guy had come to Fire country to start over, but he was in a group of peaceful activists in Ame when he was young. This guy remembers the activists that met with Hanzo. he gave me three names; Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan." Sasuke lets that sink in.

"That's a coincidence," says Touya, immediate in his denial. "There are probably a bunch of women named Konan in that area. We don't even know if the second in command of Akatsuki, Konan. is using her real name."

"My guy said that those three kids went into that meeting with Hanzo, but only two came back. It was just Nagato and Konan, and when they did come back," Sasuke rocks forward on his feet, "they told their people that Hanzo had murdered Yahiko. And the last thing he told me was that Nagato had bright orange hair and that Konan wore an origami flower in her hair." Sasuke sinks back into his original position on the couch. KIB doesn't know much about Pein and Konan, but Pein has very distinctive orange hair, and Konan is known for wearing an origami flower in her hair and using chakra laden paper constructs as a weapon.

Kakashi gets to his feet and starts pacing the length of the room. He's once told Sasuke when they were younger that he thought better on his feet, which is why he never wanted to take a desk job. Sasuke wonders if Kakashi still feels that way and if he took on the mantle of Hokage-Elect because he felt like he had to and not because he wanted to.

"So more than two decades ago, Hanzo the Salamander has a meeting with a peaceful group of activists who share his vision for better world order. The country could very well be likely to raise its international profile with the help of Hotsprings Country and new tourist industry, and potentially," Kakashi points a finger at Sasuke, "mineral mining. Which I assume our refugee contact also mentioned seeing as he works as a miner." It's not even a question. Kakashi knows how Sasuke's mind works. He had a front-line seat to Sasuke figuring out how to be so much more than a warrior he needed to be when he was still a teenager, so he only nods back at the assertion.

"There was a murder. Hanzo killed Yahiko, for what reason?" Sasuke shrugged at the question, he couldn't figure that out, and he wasn't sure if anyone would. Kakashi seems to be on a roll, anyway, "Konan and Nagato, who happen to be very engaged with the already tense civilian population in Amegakure, start the initial riots of the civil war."

"And all hell breaks loose," finishes Shikaku, bowing his head under the weight of their discovery. Everyone is quiet for a moment, Sasuke himself is still reeling from meeting the miner, so he can't imagine what everyone else is feeling. And then Shikaku's head snaps up and opens his mouth to say something, but Ino beats him to the punch, "Your report says that you think the civil war is over, though?

"Six years ago, after decades of silence, Ame sends genin teams to the Chunin exams, and for what? To start re-introducing themselves to the world, which is the same time that we all figure out that Akatsuki has set up shop in Amegakure. Their top commanding officers are Konan and some orange-haired guy who are both familiar with the terrain of Ame going on and on about world peace no matter how twisted, hunting the Biju." Sasuke has to take a breath, tipping his head back to rest more fully against the sofa, "They won, who the hell knows what they did to Hanzo, but they won the war."

"Well," says Kakashi. His light tone is at odds with his chakra searing across the room. Sasuke, Touya, and Ino all get to their feet, there's a way to be in this moment, with Kakashi, the man who will one day command the best-trained army in all the Elemental Nations, and no one will disrespect him at this moment by keeping their seat. "We're going to make sure they don't win the next one."

***

KIB kicks into high gear after that meeting. This is where the bureau thrives. Being in the weeds of intelligence gathering, discovering new information around every corner, the entire building becomes a central hub of the Shinobi Armed Forces. Akatsuki had become an even bigger threat than before they knew they had taken over Amegakure. Keiko, Rin, and Sasuke get together to hash out how to find out more information. They are operating under the impression that Hanzo is dead, but they need some confirmation regardless, from assets on the ground. Konoha also needs to know how Konan and Pein, or Nagato as he used to be called, govern Amegakure and what the hell the civilian daimyo is doing in Rain Country.

Here is what Sasuke learns about Keiko and Rin:

  1. They are actually engaged. Rin proposed to Keiko about six months ago on their tenth anniversary. Keiko still hasn't gotten Rin a ring, and it is a point of contention for them.
  2. They met while Keiko was an intern for KIB, a fresh graduate of Konoha University, and Rin was already an ANBU Captain and seven years older than Keiko. These women are so incredibly fucking competent at their jobs that Sasuke feels like he shouldn't even be in the same room as them. But they are incredibly willing to share the stories of their professional and personal lives, and Sasuke can't help but take it in.
  3. They take absolutely no bullshit. When Sasuke had been in the weeds of getting a KIB agent to agree to go to Ame, he kept hitting up against a wall. The agent obviously wasn't comfortable with a former traitor handling such classified intelligence and had snapped and asked why Sasuke didn't go find all his missing-nin buddies and risk his life in Ame himself. Sasuke had snarled back, "Better be a traitor than a spineless bastard who doesn't have the goddamn guts to do what needs to be done." Keiko and Rin and shut that shit down immediately. It was the first time they had seen Sasuke's temper, but it wouldn't be the last.



***

He was startled by a knock on his office door. He had been coordinating with ANBU STRATCOM about sending KIB agents to Ame and was looking over his meeting notes. Naruto poked his head in and smiled brightly, "Hey, moron."

Sasuke smirked, "Morning, dumbass." Naruto blinked at him.

"It's evening."

"What?"

"It's literally six now, moron."

Sasuke glanced at the clock on his walls and blinked. It was definitely six at night. Naruto stepped into his office and poked one of the boxes with his foot, "What is all this," he asked, gesturing to the mess of files stacked on top of each other and the, frankly, crazy-looking whiteboard post note situation Sasuke had set up.

Sasuke capped the marker in his hands and stuck his hands in his pockets, "I'm trying to figure out how to put assets on the ground in Ame."

Naruto snorted and started pushing the boxes of files into one corner, trying to clear a pathway to walk into Sasuke's office, "And what you needed all the files KIB had on Ame to do it," he asked, slightly incredulous and mostly mocking.

"Yeah."

Naruto turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "Well, have you eaten in the time that you've done this or no?" Sasuke opened to reply that he was fine, thank you very much, except his stomach chose that moment to growl.

Naruto huffed out a laugh, and Sasuke felt the heat rise on his cheeks. "Alright, moron, let's get some ramen."

Sasuke grumbled about ramen loving morons under his breath as he pulled on his jacket and sealed his office shut; it wouldn't do to have someone walk in and see all the classified files sitting out in the open. Naruto only laughed, blond hair brushing the back of his neck and dress shirt, hair falling like a feathery mess on his forehead, nearly obscuring his hitae-tae. "And shut up already; I heard you wanted to take on the entire Akatsuki by yourself in the meeting you had with Kakashi," barks Sasuke. Naruto blanches as Sasuke gets a steel grip on the blond's shoulder, "You know I'm going to tell Sakura about it, right moron?"

"Alright, let's not be hasty. I meant it as a joke," splutters Naruto. Sasuke isn't even remotely convinced and tells him so. They walk out of KIB like that, bickering like they are still fresh genin straight out of the Academy on D ranked missions. They head to the hospital because if Sasuke was still working, then Sakura most definitely still was. And she still had to help Sasuke beat Naruto into the ground for his comment about going after the Akatsuki earlier that month. Sasuke chuckled. Naruto glanced at him wearily.

"Why are you laughing?" he asked, inching away from Sasuke. Sasuke grinned at him, wide and unnaturally bright, at least for Sasuke. His cheeks hurt from the effort.

"You'll find out."

***

Sakura in the hospital is always a revelation. She leads the trauma ward with an iron fist, directing patients and doctors efficiently and effectively. She wields her authority the way Kakashi wields his sword, the way Naruto creates his seal; there is a bone-deep understanding of their craft. It takes Sasuke aback, how proud he is of her. He doesn't think he has the right to, Sakura's growth as a kunoichi and even as a person happened despite Sasuke, not because of him. But he is selfish in this as he is with their friendship; this is his teammate, his best friend, his found family. He can't help how fiercely he loves her.

Sakura babbles about her work at the trauma ward and how stupid Naruto is in equal measure. It is a breathtaking verbal beatdown though they definitely get stares from the civilians on the street for it. Naruto makes a beeline for Ichiraku's, and Sasuke thinks amusedly that Naruto would be able to find Ichiraku from any point in Konoha. They take their seats and are greeted by Ayame and Teuchi, who both greet them warmly as always.

"Hi Ayame, I'd love a bowl of miso ramen, please."

"Give me the special, old man, and keep it coming."

"One vegetarian, and some napkins too."

"So," starts Naruto, turning towards Sasuke, "how's the job going overall." Sakura twists in her stool to face him, and Sasuke privately despairs how they have caged him on either side. Sakura was supposed to help Sasuke box in Naruto, not him.

"It's fine," he says, ready to start giving monosyllabic answers to shut down this conversation. He hates small talk.

"You're enjoying it."

"It's good."

"How's your team?"

"Good, qualified." Sasuke idly wonders where this is going.

"I heard you had to go and help out on the Haran Bay situation," adds Sakura. "Ino says you handled it well."

Sasuke perks up, slurping his noodles in a way that would have made his mother cringe, and then nods. "Yeah, she said I did good work." They obviously don't know about his meeting with Kakashi about Hanzo and the Akatsuki.

"Kakashi-sensei must have thought so since he went with your suggestions," she exclaims, placing her chopsticks diagonally on the rim of the bowl.

"That must have felt good," adds Naruto suddenly, nodding gratefully at Ayame for placing another bowl of ramen in front of him.

"It did."

"Because you're in love with him."

"Yes."

There is clatter from Ayame, who has dropped Naruto's empty dish on the floor. "Oh god," she stammers, hastily picking up the dish and squirreling herself behind the curtain separating the counter from the small kitchen.

The three of them are silent in response. Sasuke slowly chews his noodles, unwilling to give up his facade of normality. Even though the noodles start to taste like plastic, and even though his heart has dropped to his stomach. He isn't hungry anymore, and he underestimated Naruto. Naruto, meanwhile, is gaping, mouth shiny with ramen broth, eyes wide. Sasuke should take a picture; he has never seen the blond lost for words before.

"Well, I didn't think you would just admit it," Naruto shouts. "What the hell are you doing just admitting it?"

"Keep your voice down," warns Sakura, shoulders curved with tension, practically vibrating in her seat. She has never done well with problems she couldn't punch away, and this is one of those times.

Naruto rounds on her next, "You knew?"

"I mean, it's obvious if even you could figure it out, Naruto."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you are not so good with the whole," Sasuke makes a vague gesture with his free hand, "noticing when people have crushes thing," he drawls. Naruto only looks more confused, eyes narrowed, and Sakura snorts softly. In the months since Sasuke has been out of prison, he has had the unfortunate experience of being in a room with Naruto and Hinata at the same time, and it is physically painful to see how oblivious Naruto is. It gives both him and Sakura second-hand embarrassment to watch Hinata moon over the idiot.

"Okay, but you're still in love with Kaka-"

"I said keep your damn voice down," hisses Sakura.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Tough shit, buddy, when did this start?" demands Naruto, scrubbing his mouth clean on his orange sleeves. Sasuke grimaces and hands him a napkin instead.

He shrugs and answers. "I don't know."

Sakura calls him out immediately, in a strangely sing-song tone, "Liar, liar, I may not be a Katon specialist, but I will set your bullshit denial on fire." A snort of laughter comes from behind the kitchen curtains; Ayame should be paying them for how much entertainment she's getting from this.

Sasuke breathes out slow, steady, just like they taught him at the Academy. Almost immediately, the two mimic him. They all learned when young to pace themselves in emotionally volatile situations; stress was a group phenomenon and could get you killed on a mission if you let it overtake your decision-making skills. Pity the three of them only figured this all out after Sasuke had left Konoha, even if it was while Sasuke was still in prison. Sakura takes his right hand, swinging their joined hands together lightly in the small space under the counter.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, but we only want to understand, Sasuke." He looks at her with soft eyes, hearing the echo of their conversation just less than a week ago. Naruto takes his other hand, hesitant as if expecting Sasuke to shrug him off. And the Sasuke that left Konoha would have done just that; he would have snapped at both of them and felt ashamed at how comforted he felt with his hands in theirs. But the young boy that had left Konoha at 13 wasn't the 18-year old that had come back to the Village. He had promised himself that he wouldn't be that blood-bound, revenge obsessed boy anymore. He had promised himself that he would treat his team better, be a better man than what was expected of him. So Sasuke grips Naruto's hand tight and runs his thumb over the backs of the blond's knuckles. He does the same to Sakura.

He tells them of Kakashi's spider web lashes against clothed cheeks when he had been arrested, he tells them about the prowl of Kakashi when they had trained together, all sleek power, a precision instrument if Sasuke had ever seen one. He tells them about standing under thunder clouds in Otogakure's flat landscape, desperate to feel the crackle of lightning because it was the closest he could get to Kakashi's chakra when he was hundreds of miles away. Sasuke loses himself in the details, voice softer than a whisper and thinner than a cloud in Ichiraku. There is the pressure at the sides of his throat, just underneath his jaw, and it feels like growing up, learning how to choke down your tremors and tears as you age. He tells them that when Kakashi looks at him with explicit approval in his eye, he shivers like he was cold, but god, he had never felt so warm. Sasuke comes to the realization that he could pinpoint when it all started, when he realized something was different, but he can't remember a time when he wasn't in love with Kakashi.

They are silent. Naruto tips himself forward to rest his forehead against Sasuke sternum, two of his fingers on the pulse in Sasuke's wrist. Somehow, it is easier to breathe with the blond's weight on his chest than without. Sasuke wonders how any onlookers feel about the scene they are undoubtedly creating. No doubt new rumors would fly around the Village. He is grateful that the stand is empty except for Teuchi and Ayame, who at this point are used to keeping Team Seven secrets.

"Please don't tell anyone," he says, voice breaking.

His teammates tighten their hands, and Naruto leans back to look him in the eye, blue eyes blazing, straight-backed, and uncharacteristically solemn. "We never would." Sasuke turns to Sakura. It's not that he doesn't trust them to keep a secret; it's that his entire life is a matter of public record up for consumption. He had been hounded by the media when his clan had died, a child of 12 years, scared to leave the house where his parents had been murdered, to avoid journalists. He was a high-profile criminal for five years, and when he had come back, profiles of him appeared in the tabloids at an explosive rate. Some of it had been sympathetic towards him, turning around civilians to his side during the trial, but it was all invasive, especially for someone as private as the Uchiha were raised to be. So, he trusted his teammates, but he needed to ask for their silence, to quiet the persistent doubts that hissed in the back of his mind.

"You have my word," says Sakura, "that I won't tell anyone about this."

Sasuke once again swallows the lump in his throat, "Thank you."

***

Sakura and Naruto walk him home like that, swinging his hands on either side of him. They ask him a couple more questions about Kakashi, and Sakura teasingly points out that lots of genins get crushes on their Jounin teacher, _so you're not nearly as special as you think you are Sasuke._ Sasuke, in return, points out that lots of genins have crushes on their teammates as well and laughs at her immediate scowl, her cheeks flushed when remembering her crush on him. Naruto being Naruto, just laughs indiscriminately at them both. Sasuke takes these memories and tucks them in his chest, in the same place where he put Team Seven for five years under Orochimaru's command. They are a steady heartbeat in his life, consistent in their love for him and their faith in him, so they live in his chest where all hearts go, protected by curved bone and sinew.

Sasuke enters the threshold of his house the way his mother and nanu taught him, right foot first, calling out a greeting even though nobody is home. Naruto slips off his sneakers without bothering to untie them, as do Sasuke and Sakura. Naruto yawns but ambles over to Sasuke's parents' picture at their wedding, mounted to the wall. His mother is resplendent in her red wedding lehenga. Her eyes are cast downward, her expression uncharacteristically smooth, while his father stands in a suit by her side, features uncharacteristically pulled in a smile. It is an odd picture of his parents, but it is one of the few he has of them without Itachi, so he keeps it on his walls. Naruto claps his hands and bows to Sasuke's parents, greeting them in his own customs, and as always, Sasuke appreciates it. Sakura drops her weapons pouch on the living room table, collapsing onto the couch with a groan.

"You both staying the night?" Sasuke asks, unnecessarily. Sakura looks half asleep already, and Naruto is squinting at his fridge, holding it open and letting out all the cold air. They both make faint sounds of agreement, so Sasuke shuffles to his bathroom. He ducks into the shower with a sigh of relief, letting the hot water wash down his back and soothe his aching muscles. He slowly massages shampoo into his hair, some strands of hair fall down and tickle his nose, and he reminds himself to have Naruto cut Sasuke's hair sometime this week. He shuffles out of the shower eventually and goes to find Sakura in the living room. He slides open shogi doors and ambles over to Sakura's side. She, too, has taken a shower, her hair wet and no longer spiky, drips water onto the towel she has wrapped over her shoulders. Her feet are propped up on the table, and she is channel surfing, the television no longer making noise with how fast she changes channels.

"You know," he starts. Sakura hums as if to say she's listening. "If the whole shinobi thing doesn't work out, we could start renovating houses for a living instead. We did a pretty good job with this one." He gestures to the blend of traditional Konoha wood sliding doors, dark walls, and the southern style furniture popular in the Crescent Moon Kingdom. The dark hardwood floors were replaced with a softer, gorgeous light wood from Fire country's southern forests.

He had completely gutted his childhood home when he was released from prison. He couldn't abandon his district, where his people had lived and made a home, but he also couldn't sleep in the same place where he could still see the outline of his father's fallen body in his mind's eye. He ran his hired genin teams ragged, but they had managed to completely renovate the house's first floor within the last several months.

In his faith, in his clan, there were several important customs when it came to putting the dead to rest:

  1. Their custom was to burn the body and place the decorated urns in the Naka Shrine vaults, to be kept safe from worldly harm.
  2. Sasuke had to plant a seed in the earth for each fallen member of his family so that they could give back to the earth what the land granted to them when still alive.
  3. Flickering flames that held their shape for weeks on end were placed on the Naka River itself. To remind the clan, they may be dragons of fire, but they still came from the sea.



So, in the space where his parents fell, Sasuke had planted a dry garden in the middle of the house, his parent's branches were thin, but they reached to touch the night sky, golden leaves turned in the corner of Sasuke's eye from his living room. Naruto had taken over the furniture buying process with surprising competency, and Sakura had decorated the walls with art, their collection a mix of traditional clan paintings of deep blue dragons, and modern pop art. The upstairs was still a complete mess, but he was looking forward to making this house a home.

Sakura sinks deeper into their couch with a sigh. "Yeah, we might as well be, seeing as we are renovating all the houses in the district."

Sasuke ignores the twinge in his chest at that; there used to be a time when he wouldn't have had to do this, back when his family was alive. Sakura picks on his maudlin mood before it even sets in.

"I'm sorry, that was shitty and insensitive of me, Sasuke."

"It's alright, at least you self-corrected," he offers. Both she and Sasuke grimaced at that, undoubtedly remembering all the time's civilian clients would bring up his family during their D ranked mission days. They are saved by Naruto, who is dressed in some truly old-fashioned blue nightgown like pajamas, a sleeping cap on his head.

"It's been six years idiot; you couldn't find better pajamas?" snarks Sasuke.

"Hey, I spent most of that time on the road, too. There wasn't time-"

"How do you have time to buy the exact same pajamas that you had then in a larger size, but you couldn't find the time to get a random pair of shorts from your closet?"

"It's a skill," he replies, tone bland but with twitching lips that give him away every time. Naruto sits down on Sasuke's other side, throws an arm over the back of the couch, and settles down to watch KCB, Konoha Central Beat, talking about a shipping company under fire for one reason or another within the financial district. It's a good night for Sasuke, overall.

***

That same night, Kakashi drops by, unannounced, because, of course, the man would show up the very night Sasuke told Naruto and Sakura he is in love with their former teacher. So Sasuke has to drag himself out of bed at two in the morning when Kakashi's chakra signal wakes him up. He idly wonders how people sleep next to Kakashi when he is such a livewire.

Sasuke finds him sitting at the edge of his indoor garden, staring at the ever-reaching tree branches of Sasuke's parents with their golden-dipped leaves and moon-bright bark. "He pads barefoot over to him, silent as his training requires him to be, but Kakashi hears him anyway.

"Did you break in again?"

"No, I used my key."

"Let me guess, you were the one that taught Sakura how to make a copy of my key?" asks Sasuke, wry and amused despite himself.

Kakashi's eye seems to smile. There is something strange in being allowed to see the crinkles that form around his eye. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says, cheerful. "I would never break the law. I have to set a good example for the kids."

Sasuke smirks at his tone. "You read porn in public. I think that ship sailed a long time ago."

"Don't be a brat. Icha Icha is a literary masterpiece." Kakashi looks ready as he always is to launch into a defense of the series, and Sasuke only rolls his eyes.

"It's porn, and I've met Jiraiya, so I don't have much faith in him as a writer."

"I can't believe my own student would come after me like this."

"You better believe it," Sasuke snickers. He sinks onto the floor where Kakashi is, sitting beside him. "Why are you here, anyway?"

"Well, you wanted me here, didn't you?" Sasuke almost balks before he remembers their conversation on the Naka River's banks more than a month ago now. Kakashi had visited him shortly afterward to discuss his first day at KIB, but it's been a while since he's seen him in his childhood home.

"Yeah."

"No need to sound so enthusiastic, "Kakashi blithely points out.

Sasuke puts on a show of sighing deeply, "Well, Sakura and Naruto are already here, so you might as well."

"Thanks so much for your hospitality, Sasuke." Sasuke just rolls his eyes at the man. They sit quietly, under the moonlight that strikes the room when Kakashi suddenly gets up, and Sasuke scrambles to follow. "Show me what you've done with the place," he demands.

So Sasuke does. He takes Kakashi on a hesitant tour through his house. Sasuke isn't sure what the man wants to see, but he walks Kakashi through the kitchen, almost sardonically, because it is the only room in Sasuke's house the man is familiar with. Kakashi levels a glare at him for that comment. They walk through sliding shogi doors that lead to his mother's office.

The office had been left untouched by Sasuke when the massacre happened, and for the six years since Sasuke had been back, but when he returned, it was the first place he went back to. His mother's office warm in his memories, like the clan library underneath the shrine. It held starlight memories of learning at his mother's knee about the clan or even schoolwork. There used to be a small desk where Sasuke, as a child, would pretend to do grown-up work. The office itself had been stacked to the brim with books. Personal memoirs of women who had paved the path for Kunoichi in Konoha were added by Sakura, books on art and architecture and design that Sasuke had poured over while renovating the house. Naruto had pressed privacy seals into each corner of the room. A katana was mounted to the wall behind the desk, underneath a clock shaped like a monkey.

"What's with the clocks in his house," asks Kakashi, looking amused. Sasuke shuffles, embarrassed.

"When I was a kid, I was obsessed with animals, and I saw these clocks while shopping, and I begged my mom to get them. I've had them forever."

Kakashi snickers, "You had a bunch of stuffed animals as a kid, didn't you?" Sasuke decides to be the bigger man and doesn't answer.

After that, they walked through the hallway, through the sliding glass doors that led to outside his home and into the open district, and then back inside to see the renovated bathroom, to Sasuke's office, which he took particular pride in, where Kakashi teased him about _being all grown up now._ He walked Kakashi softly past Naruto and Sakura's designated guest bedrooms until they finally stopped before his bedroom door.

"Well, this is it, I guess." He gestured to the door.

Kakashi tilted his head, "Let's see it then."

Sasuke wanted to take a step back, Kakashi in his bedroom, only hours after he had told Naruto and Sakura that he was in love with him. His stomach twisted in dread and excitement. He opened the door and walked Hatake Kakashi into his bedroom. "This is me," he gestured weakly. His bed was still unmade, the sheets twisted on the bed, the moonlight making it the focus of the room, or maybe that was just Sasuke's own twisted mind that just wanted to push Kakashi into his bed. "I'd spend most of my time here if I could."

"Just sleeping?" asks Kakashi. A strange light in his eye that Sasuke can't even begin to understand. His heart hummingbirds in his chest, almost weightless in it.

"Not always," he replies, not even thinking about his response, and immediately regrets it. Kakashi raises his eyebrows, but all Sasuke can think of is waking up yesterday morning and twisting in his own sheets. Arousal rising like a song, heat in his stomach, and an ache inside him. Sasuke's hand beneath his shorts, imagining Kakashi leaving bruises on his skin. He imagined the heat of his former teacher's mouth on his wrists, gentle, and then he wondered at how Kakashi's teeth would feel biting into the soft silken skin of his inner thighs. His thumb had twisted over the head of his cock in tight circles, slick fluid leaking and making the glide easy, wet, and loud in the quiet morning—Kakashi's name on his lips, feverish dreams skimming along his body.

"I'm sure," murmurs Kakashi. "Well, I'll leave you to it."

And then he is gone, body flickering away with a small spike in his chakra. Sasuke breathes out, clenches his fist futilely, trying to regain the strength that has left him.

"What the fuck, Hatake. You're not supposed to be making it this hard."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments, I do respond. I also love kudos and bookmarks as well. Thank you so much and I hope you all enjoy this. As I said before, I love constructive criticism. This fic also may update sometimes but it may be me fixing some past mistakes.


	3. The Ruin in my veins-tuz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry I am so late, friends. The story got away from me, I have to backwards outline to get it all together. There is no law, there may be a plot???? IDK, OKAY! The muse swept me away I couldn't help it. So I'm sorry this is late, it is also pretty bad, but if I didn't post I would loose my mind and never be able to focus on my outline. I had written way to may words, oh my god, but also somehow not enough. Anyway, like, COMMENT(I respond to everyone of them), bookmark. I also apologize that I deleted some of your comments, I don't know who to work this site, I am so sorry though. I felt super sad once I had realized what I had done. Anyway, I have a tumblr, terryberryferry, come see me scream inot the void about this fic and learn more about my process and get updates on new upcoming fics. Happy reading let me know if you have any suggestions, or catch a typo. 
> 
> And yes, some things are deliberately different, on purpose y'all. lots of love.

Sasuke was nine when he finally found the scroll. At that point, nana-abu had been teaching Sasuke the clan's history for about four almost five years, and Sasuke was growing into his role as the second son of the Uchiha clan, the shrine keeper. He was given a growing list of responsibilities, all of which had led him to his current predicament.

Aunty Kimiko had a Gecko contract that she was retiring to the clan archives. She had initially negotiated the contract for her intelligence work, but the Gecko Contract wasn't necessary anymore since she was retired.

_It doesn't seem fair to keep the Geckos away from someone who could be a real partner to them, Sasuke._

Or so he had been told, though he didn't understand why a summoning contract wouldn't want to partner with Aunty Kimiko permanently; Aunty Kimiko told him not to worry about it.

Regardless, it was now Sasuke's responsibility to bring the scrolls to the archives. The Gecko contract was pretty at least; a thin scroll with almost bark-like patterns on it, and in the dark of the Naka Shrine, the scroll emitted a faint glow.

Sasuke bounded down the stairs leading towards the first level of the clan archives and immediately tripped over a stack of books he had left on the floor next to his second favorite chair near the entrance. This always happened, in the space between the dark stairwell and the light of the library and Sasuke's own inability to be organized. He scowled as he scrambled up, clutching the Gecko contract in his hands. He could hear his nana-abu chiding him for leaving his books everywhere where anyone could trip over it. The reasonable thing would be to move the stack of texts littering the floor like a particular convoluted training course for Academy students, but Sasuke was far too busy for such things.

The clan libraries were expansive as Sasuke had come to learn. Seven floors were hidden right under the Naka Shrine, spanning the entire Uchiha District's length, kept a secret. It was a promise made to the clan, to remember the past and promise the future, that no one else would ever hear except Sasuke, except his nana-abu, except the second sons, the secret keepers.

Sasuke could feel the rumble of hundreds of pairs of feet over his head traveling in and out of the district. A hustle and bustle that was intimately familiar to Sasuke, his second heartbeat. Tourists from all over the world converged on the civilian restaurants that the Uchiha had once sponsored to join the village. The artisan silken scarves crafted by the Uchiha Boutique and the various clothing pop-ups from up and coming designers flashed winking gold jewelry and bolts of expertly dyed fabrics in shop windows. And everywhere you looked, delicately painted on doorways, on shop windows, on wrapping paper, on ice cream cones, and earrings worn by every of age member of the family was the Uchiha mon.

He glanced at the random stack of books he had tripped over, _"The Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi",_ a popular children's shinobi novel that Sasuke had borrowed from the public library, was right on top of the pile. The Uchiha Public Library had a secret entrance that led to the private clan archives. Sasuke used it almost daily to sneak some of his favorite fantasy novels into the archive when he got tired of reading through various history texts about Konoha's founding. He knew it was his responsibility to learn about the clan and their role in Konoha, but he was nine years old in a secret hideout; it couldn't all be boring, could it?

As he meandered through the historical library, the very first floor of the archives, Sasuke could smell old leather-bound books and ink on his fingers. Semi-permanent marks from writing stained his hands, his crisp shirts, and his mother's tablecloths, much to her mortification. On his nana-abu's favored work desk, Sasuke could see no less than three empty cups of chai. He breathed in dust motes and clutched the Gecko contract in his hands as he climbed down to the contract storage floor. The pads of his fingers memorizing the already familiar grooves and texture of the stone walls as he traveled down, down, down into the heart of the Naka Shrine.

He had to write a report on the condition of the scroll and ensure that the contract was retired correctly. For that, Sasuke needed to find the reference books for the Konoha protocols on retiring a summoning contract. Sasuke had to then interview the summons and determine if the Gecko would be willing to contract again any time soon. Some contracts tended to go dormant after their summoner either retired or died. The Senju Cat contract had disappeared after the second Hokage died.

At the very least, Sasuke was excited to finally meet the infamous Geckos and register the contract with the Hokage office. All of the Uchiha summoning contracts and the clan's documentation surrounding them was stored in a climate-controlled environment, where he and nana-abu could summon a representative to do a post-contract interview. The last floor of the secret archives.

Sasuke enters into a dark hallway lit by small lanterns along the side of the wall, a relic of days gone by. The walls are just bookshelves with wood that seemed seconds away from collapsing under the groaning weight of hastily bound texts. The very paper of these books was so old that Sasuke still wasn't allowed to touch them, until now, that is. Secrets of trade and clan were hidden in those spines, and Sasuke nearly trembles at the thought devouring them.

The giddiness of knowing secrets that no one else did.

Sasuke Uchiha, the Secret Keeper.

This was his inheritance, these stolen truths, formed by decisions made by those now laid to rest. When the clan had first made Konoha a home, all those years ago. Cradled by the Hashirama Forest and the slow-building hearth fire of the Uchiha themselves when Uchiha Fumiko was fighting to make Konoha into the cultural capital of the world while her brother fought in the First World War to protect his sister's dreams for the new village.

He swings open the heavy wooden door, takes note of the seals engraved into the wood, and takes a good look around. The seventh floor of the library is old, the air is musty, and the lights are strangely dim. The room is cold to protect the integrity of the documents it houses, and the entire room is plastered with seals. The room walls are covered in scrolls, the Bear contracts; the Cat contract; the Turtle contract that would be given to Maito Guy by request of the turtles themselves, which was one of the more bizarre conversations Sasuke has witnessed in his training as a shrine keeper. Sasuke stifles a laugh that threatens to burst out at the memory; he's on serious business after all.

Sasuke walks over to the tray placed on the desk near the entrance; nana-abu had been very specific when instructing Sasuke on storing the contract. There is a tray for incoming contracts at the desk with the most current reference books where Sasuke can write his report. There are a dozen or so working tables in the almost cavernous room, with sealing ink in red, blue, and green inkpots. They provide spots of color in the otherwise dull room, accented only by the marks on the contracts themselves.

And there...

His eyes narrowed at the wall furthest from the door.

Sasuke stands in front of _it_ , tilting his head, a hand tucked underneath his chin like he's seen Itachi-bhai do when thinking. Every single scroll has the Hokage seal stamped across it. Summoning contracts can be huge advantages for shinobi and are a mark of status. They are also a mark of something unknowable, the contracts give parts of themselves to their summoners, and it changes them. Aunty Kimiko never activated her Sharingan, but the Gecko contract gave her night vision, a boon as an infiltration specialist before switching to a career in diplomacy. Shisui-bhai and Itachi-bhai's facial structure had changed when they signed the crow contract. Their bones had become more prominent, taking away any youthful softness they had at nineteen. Their hair had become glossier, and a part of Sasuke was jealous at how unfairly beautiful they had become. Sasuke's mother would go up to both of them, ruffling their changed hair, cooing at her handsome boys, all the while laughing at Sasuke's pouting. It was important for the Hokage to keep track of his shinobi with a summoning contract for safety and health concerns, if nothing else.

Except, the contract he was examining didn't have the Hokage seal binding it. There was no registration number to be seen. And the scroll looked so old. Sasuke had seen scrolls that had been under contract for almost a century, the Bear contracts came to mind, but this contract looked like it would crumble and crack if someone opened it. Which just wasn't done. Someone had neglected it.

And...it was alone. No marks indicated that there had been previous summoners for the contract, and the entire scroll itself was placed away from the others. In the very center of the room. Or, the other scrolls had been deliberately placed around the strange unmarked contract.

"Ah, I see you've come across the dragon contract, Sasuke."

Sasuke jumped and whirled around, heart racing in his chest, having a distinct feeling like he had been caught doing something wrong. He bared his teeth to the feeling. He was meant to be the keeper of the shrine, the storyteller in a clan of warriors, and if he couldn't be at home in the archives, then there was no place for him at all. Nana-Abu chuckled and brushed his hand over Sasuke's head, ruffling his hair. Then Sasuke registered what his nana-abu said, and his eyes almost popped out of his head with how wide they got.

"The dragon contract," he exclaimed, turning back to the scroll and just barely containing himself from taking it in his hands.

"Well, supposedly," sighed Nana-Abu, almost absentmindedly resting his right hand over his chest, a glimmer in his eyes.

"Tell me their stories," demanded Sasuke, tugging on his nana-abu's pants. _Tell me their stories._ It was what Sasuke said whenever he needed to know something. Bold and hungry. An itch under his skin, a restlessness in his soul that would only be soothed by _knowing_.

Nana-abu hummed and obliged, as he always did in the face of Sasuke's relentless curiosity, "The scroll has been with the family since the days before Uchiha Madara and Izuna. It's older than anything we have, and from what I've been told by my predecessor who was told by his predecessor-"

"What does predecessor mean?" Sasuke interrupts to ask. Nana-Abu had taught him to ask questions when he first thought of them so that Sasuke would always be in a state of learning.

Nana-Abu smiled at him, proud with twitching lips. The smile the grown-ups made at Sasuke when they thought he was being particularly amusing. Sasuke huffed at it.

"I meant the shrine keeper before me. When you take over the shrine, I will be known as your predecessor. But I was told by the previous shrine keeper that when the dragons rose from the sea, they gave this scroll to the first Uchiha's, as a gift."

Sasuke listened intently with wide eyes and open ears; at this point in his training, he had learned to be greedy for the knowledge that Nana-Abu himself told Sasuke. Some stories were too important to be written down and archived, and the legends about the dragons were always orally passed on to protect the clan's history.

"Of course, no one has opened the scroll for centuries, and no one has ever communicated with the dragons in just as long, so we don't really know what the scroll is for. But it's a part of the clan, and it will continue to be so."

There was a finality to Nana-abu's explanation. As if the matter was closed, as if the scroll was not a true summoning contract, how could it be? There were no more dragons. But Sasuke would remember the scroll and how his grandfather places his hand on his heart when he saw it.

That night he dreamt of the dragons, great blue beings rising from the very depth of the sea like a revelation, parting the waters to greet man. Their scales the color of the deepest part of an ocean; the dragons had plucked their scales and gave them to the Uchiha so that man could see. Land dragons, teaching the first Uchiha's to breathe fire, raging flames licking at children, never once hurting them. The water dragons teaching his ancestors how to swim and soothe their burning tongue and bellies after learning Katon Jutsu. He dreamt of humans speaking to the dragons, dancing with them under the sun, the scales on the great beasts, a kaleidoscope of colors and songs, on beaches with the salt air, wet from the sea. He dreamt of the swirling black tomoe in ruby red eyes, glittering in the liquid darkness of the sea, an inky blue-black that was the night sky without stars that hung low in the landscape of Sasuke's dreams. Cradled in the Hashirama Forest, Konoha green, the night chirping in his ears. Sasuke remembered the dragon scroll, sitting in the clan archives, resting on two hooks protruding from the wall.

Three years later, in a village besieged, under a cloud of grief that plagued every shinobi mourning the Sandaime's death.

Between the soft hours of dusk and dawn, under flickering lights, the hooks holding the scroll would be empty.

***

"So, I think at this point, we just have to finish painting this guest bedroom and finish up the bathrooms. Have you chosen a color yet?"

Sasuke sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. Kenji, the Jounin teacher for one of the genin teams he and Sakura hired to renovate the house, looks at him expectantly. Sasuke looks over at him, already tired.

"The problem is, Naruto and Sakura want the room painted white, and I really think a navy blue would be better, and for some reason, they keep thinking their opinion matters when it's my fucking house."

Kenji cracks a grin, sharp canines peeking through, "I'm pretty sure at this point they might as well move in."

"At this point, I'm pretty sure they already have."

"So, do you want us to go ahead and start painting?"

"I mean, we need to get the painting done so we can start getting furniture in, and Sakura found these bookshelves to put up for the offices and bedrooms, and I want this to all be done by the end of the month too."

Kenji whistles, "You've been moving really fast with this house, man. It was rubble just a couple of months ago."

He hummed. Sasuke had told his lawyers to knock down the house while he was still in prison and had started drawing up the renovation plans with Sakura in Naruto in the slate grey visiting lounges in the prison center. By the time he got out, the new foundations had already been laid. Lightwood and large windows shedding warmth and airiness to Sasuke's home that didn't exist when he left for Oto. He had come back to something different but good. The house was the first growth after scorched earth events. He hadn't known how to start renovating the rest of the district when the place where his parents were murdered still haunted his memories and dreams, so he knocked the whole thing down and started all over again.

"You choose," he said. Kenji looks over, surprised, his brown eyes wide.

"Choose white or blue but get it painted so we can start furnishing the place." An idea comes to mind. "By the way, can we put some low hanging bookshelves in the hallways downstairs and get a chair and a better table so that people can sit by the phone when talking."

"I don't see why not. Do you already have the furniture, or do you want us to choose?"

"No offense, man, but having a bunch of genins pick out the furniture doesn't sound like a great idea."

Kenji barks out a laugh and agrees. Sasuke smiles and puts his hands in his pockets, rocking forward on his toes. Excited. Light. A lightning buzz underneath his skin. The process of creating a home was exhausting, but it was a relief and a warm wash of pride to create something from nothing. And it was a privilege that he could make a home. To clean the animal wall clocks that he had stuffed into storage after Itachi, thinking they were too childish for a child avenger, and hang them up again. He had gone with Naruto to pick out pop art for his walls, strange accents next to the clan paintings of twisting dragons rising from the sea, breathing light into the dark. Sasuke had gone with Sakura to the markets, using her as a buffer between him and angry civilians. Head held high. He had walked back to the Uchiha district, breathing in the memories of blood from Itachi's sword, the cloud of dust and ash that had risen when he had burned his family, and safely absconded them in the Naka Shrine.

He had come back, arms laden with shopping bags, and he had planted flowers in his mother's garden. He had collected the various family recipe books and put them together in a collection for his own use. Sasuke had spent days upon days cooking for Sakura, Naruto, and himself. He was adding his own notes to the Uchiha collection. He had learned how to knead the dough to make his morning paratha and evening roti. Fresh herbs lined his kitchen windows for easy access—cilantro disappearing just as quickly as he could get it. The meat in his house was fresh because his nanu used to go to this one butcher who had the best cuts, Sasuke, don't ever go anywhere else. He was an old family friend, a very old and very kind man who ran one of the best butcher shops in all of Konoha, in Sasuke's opinion. Aoi had his shop just outside the Uchiha district and remembered Sasuke coming in with his nanu to get their shopping for the week, so he made sure to let Sasuke have his pick of cuts.

Sasuke's house was full, and he fed his guests well. There were few things as sacred to an Uchiha as hospitality, and Sasuke hadn't realized it until he had come back to Konoha to rebuild. Hadn't realized the simple pride of making dinner for his friends and offering them a bed to sleep in for the night.

Sasuke had planted two trees in the middle of his house, the most obvious homage to who he had lost and to honor his parents in the safest way, the gentlest way—packing soft dirt against strong roots with firm hands—watching reaching branches, glinting gold in the rustling leaves, stark against pale bark. Sasuke had been able to come home again.

***

"So Kakashi dropped by last night," he begins, hoping to come off as nonchalant while taking a handful of dough in his hands and folding softened butter into it.

"What," says Sakura. Tone flat, glancing up from the medical journal she is hunched over, she stares at Sasuke incredulously. Sakura has her glasses on, the black frames sitting on the bridge of her nose. Naruto meanwhile drops the knife he was using to chop cilantro, which is honestly more dramatic than the moment necessitates. Sasuke should probably stop him regardless.

Naruto isn't the best in the kitchen, but Sasuke had mistakenly assumed it would be fine as long as he kept the blond away from the stove. I was wrong, Sasuke thought, rolling out his dough for paratha and placing butter on the pan behind him, the subsequent sizzle and pop of the pan loud in the silence that follows his statement.

Sakura straightens in her seat, "Kakashi-sensei came by last night," she repeats, "when?"

Sasuke carefully places his dough in the pan, hoping that he doesn't accidentally fold up the dough on the pan itself. One of the hardest parts of making a paratha was placing the dough on the pan to fry and not rushing, taking his time.

"Two in the morning, he asked me to give him a house tour."

He doesn't offer more information. Sasuke places more butter on the pan and takes the cutting board away from Naruto to chop the cilantro properly.

"Weird timing, isn't it," mutters Naruto, looking at Sasuke thoughtfully. He has very helpfully taken out a carton of eggs.

Sasuke can faintly hear the genin teams arguing over what color to paint the second-floor master bedroom. Their voices are echoing down the stairs, and Kenji breaks through the argument with practiced ease. Lord knows that Kakashi got fed up with the three of them enough when they were all genins; Kenji seems to be holding up well enough, though.

"Isn't it," remarks Sasuke, mild as the Konoha weather this morning.

"That man," grumbles Sakura, glancing at him with flinty green eyes. "Are you okay? The timing is really shitty."

Sasuke thinks about Kakashi standing in his bedroom, the strange look in his eye, and the heat of his gaze resting on Sasuke, and turns to carefully place another paratha on the stove pan. "I'm fine."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Naruto questions, leaning against the countertop. But Sasuke immediately shakes his head, not wanting to give anything away from Kakashi's visit. His teammate's reactions would range from pity, of Sasuke's overreaching feelings, to bewilderment at Kakashi's behavior, and he doesn't want to deal with either option so early in the morning. He doesn't want to deal with it ever. He tugs Naruto away from the counter and starts making his omelet instead.

He is remarkably at peace this morning, considering what happened last night. The house is loud with genins running upstairs, Sakura is muttering under her breath about idiot male scientists with no understanding of female chakra pathways. Sasuke had heard this from Orochimaru many times while in Oto when Orochimaru forced Sasuke, Karin, and Jugo to sit down and learn about chakra theory. So, the scene is strangely, bewilderingly, familiar.

Sakura is marking up the journal in front of her, and Naruto has moved to stand in the living room, the remote in his hands, listening intently to the morning news. The searing sizzle of eggs on a hot pan shocks the room, the boiling milk for today's pot of chai for the genin is slowly darkening from the pati, cardamom bobbing in the open pot, steam visibly rising in the light.

It is the part of home that Sasuke can take with him anywhere. Chai is popular all over the world. Sasuke has had it in the underground labyrinth of Oto, a maze of tunnels and homes nestled into the ground, windows built-in hills, playing peekaboo with the landscape. He and Orochimaru had spent hours in libraries pouring over maps of the terrain, plotting out the political structure of Oto, arguing with Orochimaru's advisors, all over steaming cups of chai and homemade cake rusk. The first time he had gone to a bar in Kiri, he had asked for chai instead of a beer. Sasuke had spent six months in the Crescent Moon Kingdom working at a teahouse as a cover for gaining information. It was a staple in his life; no matter where he was, he could recognize the scent of chai. It was a small, steady source of comfort in turbulent seas.

He pours the chai into a cup with a small cartoon dragon from a popular anime. Sakura had gotten it for him from the gift shop at the hospital, to go with the clocks she had said, all the while laughing at him.

A stack of parathas sits on the counter, warm and crisp, and the trickle of Sakura's second cup of coffee into a mug with a strange and quirky drawing of an iridescent slug on it is now familiar. The sun throws patterns onto the floor and walls of his kitchen and living room, the glare from open windows hides his living room paintings. The dragons wink in and out of sight as Sasuke moves around the kitchen.

There is a strange feeling in his chest, and he feels it whenever he stands in this house. A reminder that Sasuke could rebuild after all that he lost. The proof that he could create some small measure of happiness in a village where his family burned, in the village that for the most part still hated him for his betrayal, where his love burns in the Hokage Tower. It was powerful to know that he was capable of creating a home after a small lifetime of believing that he was only capable of destruction. That his hands still remembered how to create a language of love even though his tongue had forgotten how to say it.

And it was horrible that once again, he had somehow gained everything to lose. Even though the chances of his loved ones dying were growing slimmer by the day. Sasuke himself worked in intelligence; it was doubtful that he would be leaving the village anytime soon. Sakura was head of the trauma ward at Konoha Central Hospital, and she certainly couldn't leave that post. Naruto was the only one who regularly took missions, and he had been temporarily grounded in Konoha until the Akatsuki were eliminated. Kakashi, of course, was the Hokage-Elect; he couldn't leave the village without an armed guard. His people were safe, for now at least.

Sasuke's maudlin thoughts are interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

"I'll get it," grunts Sakura, putting down her red pen, the felt tip squished from how hard she pressed it while marking the medical journal. She is strangely grumpy this morning, and she had stayed over for the night, which Sakura usually doesn't do on a weekday. Sasuke wants to ask why she doesn't want to go home, but instead, he hums in response. Patience was a virtue, and Sakura would tell him when she was ready.

Naruto wanders back into the kitchen, his blue eyes cloudy, and Sasuke motions for him to take breakfast up for the genins. He disappears from view while precariously balancing a heavily loaded tray of parathas, omelet, chai, and yogurt for the kids. The cups and plates rattle ominously as Naruto climbs up the stairs.

Sasuke does not doubt that the three genins and Kenji will devour everything; genins have notoriously massive appetites. It's a by-product of consistently using chakra for the first time, puberty, and being more physically active than they ever have before. Even Sakura had been forced to abandon her civilian diet when she became a genin, scarfing down food just like the rest of them and eating Kakashi out of house and home.

He hears Sakura on the phone, "Yeah, I'll get him-" and does his best to pretend she and Ino, because of course, it's Ino, aren't talking about him.

Sasuke carefully pours chai in a cup for himself and tears into a piece of his paratha and omelet with great relish.

Sakura comes back to the kitchen, "It's Ino for you, Sasuke."

"Seriously," he grunts, in the middle of quite literally stuffing his face with food, "do you know how often she calls? Can't she send a Chunin messenger like any other self-respecting shinobi?"

Sakura rolls her eyes at him, "Just go, do you really want to keep her waiting?"

Indeed, he does not.

"I'm going, I'm going," he says, hands up in appeasement. "Remember to eat real people food and not just coffee," he calls out.

Sasuke throws Sakura a grin over his shoulder and sequesters himself in the hallway, placing the receiver next to his ear.

"Is she eating actual food or just coffee?"

"She's eating food, but she's also on her second cup of coffee in less than an hour, so we should call the hospital and warn them maybe," he replies.

Ino laughs, buts it's weak, barely a chuckle when usually she would laugh so loud that his genins could recognize that it was Ino on the phone. Ino calls him almost every day before he goes to work. Sasuke doesn't know why she does it, but Sakura will pick up nearly every morning now and chat with Ino a little bit before handing the phone to Sasuke. It's a part of his routine, another familiar comfort.

"What's wrong this time, Ino?" he asks, quiet.

"I need you to advise and staff the Hokage-Elect today."

Sasuke almost chokes on his spit at that, "Oh, is that all," he mocks.

He leans back against the wall behind him, head tipped back, sun-kissed by the light streaming through his windows and the front door left open by the genins. It's getting warmer already, he thinks. By midday, it will be sweltering, muggy; the very worst of a Konoha summer come early. When the world is set ablaze, and Sasuke will start making lemonade for the genins, the clink of ice in a glass the most familiar sound. Summer school sessions will open up for ambitious academy students or those who have to retake classes they failed during the regular school year. And newly made Chunin will start dating for the first time, generally making themselves a nuisance at mission desks.

Ino starts explaining, cutting through his wandering train of thoughts, "Touya and I have to do an emergency brief for the Joint Intelligence Committee, and since the investigation is heating up, the Hokage-Elect scheduled a bunch of meetings today, and we were going to stay and coordinate with everyone for the next couple of days, but we have to brief the Committee, _and he requested that you_ -"

"He asked for me?" interrupts Sasuke, heart beating fast in his chest. Why would Kakashi ask a relative newbie from KIB to staff him? He remembers the look in Kakashi's eyes last night and clenches his hands into a fist. He needs to remind himself that whatever he saw last night wasn't real; he barely understands what it was. Kakashi was never going to look at him the way Sasuke wanted him to. Except...

Kakashi showing up in the middle of the night, and eating in his kitchen, as if he belonged there. Kakashi stepping into his room while Naruto and Sakura slept just doors away. It made him doubt, not a lot. Just enough to get his heart beating like a hummingbird in his chest. Just enough for that traitorous feeling of hope to bloom in his chest like the jasmine he had planted in his mother's garden. Something small, sweet, and soft. Sasuke had never held anything like it before.

"Yes."

"Why would he want me to staff him? Yuta or Rin would be better options."

"But not Akira?" she asks, snickering.

He snorts so loudly that he can hear Sakura's startled laugh at the loud ungainly sound from the kitchen. He and Akira have come to a temporary and fragile truce at KIB. Sasuke respects the fact that she is a once in a generation's strategic mind and, from all accounts, an excellent interrogator, which will be useful when they finally manage to capture some Akatsuki operatives. Akira respects the fact that Sasuke has only been with KIB for a little over a month, and he has discovered more about the Akatsuki than anyone else. But there is something caustic about their interactions, both analysts walking a knife's edge during meetings, something so painfully polite in their words and bubbling rage underneath their tongues. Sooner or later, it's going to overflow.

"She doesn't seem to be the type of person you can put in a room with the Hokage-Elect and expect either of them to walk out with their sanities intact," he counters.

Akira has no respect for authority, and it shows, especially Kakashi's considering the range of disparaging remarks she has made towards Kakashi's so-called lack of judgment. Every time Sasuke has to clench his jaw and let Ino handle them, their roles at KIB were not political, and Akira was breaking a hell of a lot of rules whenever she went after the Hokage-Elect. He couldn't defend Kakashi either. It would escalate the situation, and Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto were considered a reflection of Kakashi's leadership, and Sasuke had no right to jeopardize Kakashi's standing and reputation.

"No, so that's why you have to do this." Ino seems wry over the phone.

"What does this entail?" he mused. He starts winding and unwinding the phone cord around his hands, watching the coil spring back together, drawing shapes with shadows and light on the floor of the hallway.

Ino's response is rapid-fire, "You have to sit with him while he has meetings about Ame's political situation, they still can't get into touch with the Daimyo, and make sure he understands the political impact of whatever decisions he makes regarding the Akatsuki..."

She babbles on for a while, explaining his responsibilities. Sasuke takes out a notepad and pencil from the desk drawer his home phone rests on and starts taking notes. With the phone wedged between his year and hiked shoulder, hunched over the small desk, he resolves to replace the tiny desk with something better. Kenji will probably have a better sense of how it'll look anyway.

By the time he's done talking to Ino, Sakura and Naruto have demolished most of the food, and Sakura is placing dirty dishes in the dishwasher while Naruto clears the table.

"What am I supposed to eat," he asks irritably. He made all this food, damn his teammates and their black holes for stomachs.

"We put your food in the microwave," Sakura points to the microwave in question, "you can warm up your chai and take it with you."

Her glasses are sliding down her nose, pink hair brushing her shoulders, backlit by morning light. The scent of strawberry shampoo and petrichor scented chakra is uncharacteristically muted. Her green eyes are dim and tired, but she is still more beautiful than any other woman he has ever met. I wish I could fall in love with you, he thinks. In another life, he would return her childhood affections. In another life, he would fall in love with Naruto and his bright blue eyes, and his ambition. They would stand in this kitchen. Where his mother used to press butterfly kisses against his father's cheeks, and lips, and forehead, and chin, and he would do the same. In another life, but not this one.

He ends up scarfing down his omelet and paratha, washing it down with chai, and scrambling to get ready for work. He trips over the shoes left in front of the doorway, and Yamamoto Aoi, one of the genins rebuilding Sasuke's house and district, yells at him to not be late. Sasuke yells back that _the Hokage-Elect has never been on time for anything in his life_ , so Sasuke will make the meeting before Kakashi does... probably.

***

Kakashi is late for his own meeting because, of course, he is. And since he's the Hokage-Elect, no one calls him out on it. Since Sasuke is valiantly trying to convince everyone else in Kakashi's office that he is, in fact, qualified to be staffing his former teacher, and ducking under not-so-subtle accusations of favoritism, he doesn't call out Kakashi either.

"So where are we with Rain Country's Daimyo?"

"We still can't locate him, Mr. Hokage-Elect," begins a wizened old man, his mouth a razor thins slash on his face, pinched with disapproval. There is a significant divide between Sandaime's generation and Kakashi's, and it shows immediately. The shinobi has one eye and arm covered in thick bandages, he is familiar, but for the life of him, Sasuke can't remember who this man is. "However, your shinobi haven't determined whether it's because of Ame and the Akatsuki or something else."

"What would the 'something else' be," asks Kakashi. His mask gives him a thin veneer of politeness, but Sasuke knows better. The responding silence is telling enough.

Shikaku heaves a sigh from across the room and looks critically at everyone in the makeshift war room they've set up in Kakashi's office. "At this point, we might as well accept that the Akatsuki have taken over the entire country and not just Ame."

The man wheezes under his breath, getting up and standing near Kakashi's desk, trying his best to stare down at Kakashi. Sasuke looks at him incredulously. This is Kakashi's office; everyone except the Hokage herself is a guest in Kakashi's office, there isn't a point in trying to intimidate him, and it is dangerously close to a crime to try. A woman seated on the couch, wearing a matching stylized leaf legislator's pin on her lapel, and an elaborate hairpin, looks appropriately horrified.

"We haven't had confirmed intelligence that Akatsuki has taken Ame over-"

"Yes, we do," interrupts Sasuke.

The man's face shrivels as he looks straight at Sasuke, "We have no reliable intelligence that Akatsuki has done what you say they have."

Sasuke goes cold then hot, startlingly quick. Of course, there is a group of people who hate that Sasuke is working at KIB, handling an extremely sensitive and career-making case like the Akatsuki. It gets even worse once they see Sasuke standing by the Hokage-Elect's side. Sasuke can see Kakashi's mouth part under his mask, but he can't let Kakashi defend him. Not here, not now, he has to earn these people's respect on his own merit.

"Sir, the report I compiled had intelligence from the Hotspring's Ambassador, who is quite possibly the most well-informed woman in the entire shinobi world, and gave us quite a bit of information regarding her dealings in Ame before the war. I also found former Ame nin and civilians who have seen first-hand the beginning of the civil war. I had dozens of first-hand accounts after I spoke to the miner who initially led me to believe that Pein and Konan were former Rain Country citizens. I was meticulous in my research of the region and the political situation surrounding Rain Country."

He takes a breath, almost a gasp. "I know it seems quick, but I didn't cut corners when it came to my final report. I went through the KIB research department, and I collaborated with Watanabe Yuto and Hashimoto Rin, two well-known and incredibly qualified former ANBU. They have experience in counterterrorism and have been tracking the Akatsuki for far longer than I have. Not to mention that my report was approved by my captains Yamanaka Ino, Yamamoto Touya, and the Jounin Commander," Sasuke stresses. If Danzo can't trust him, then he has to trust anyone else at KIB, at least.

"And me," says Kakashi, shifting in his chair, tone a little bit too bland to be anything other than a warning. Sasuke winces.

"Councilman Danzo, there isn't a point in arguing over the soundness of our intelligence. Sasuke and his team have done more than enough, and we have bigger things to worry about concerning Ame."

Danzo leans back on the couch, jaw clenched with obvious anger at the dismissal in Kakashi's words.

Kakashi rests his elbows on his desk. "A couple of hours ago, Hyuuga Hinata and Nara Shikamaru returned from an ANBU scouting mission."

Sasuke stills.

"ANBU sent them several weeks ago to get a feel for Ame's borders, and they've come back with some interesting intelligence. Sasuke, would you mind bringing them in-They're both waiting outside."

Sasuke swallows the sudden dread in his throat. It comes back up immediately as he crosses the room. Hinata is someone he's seen a couple of times since coming back. Her skin still flushes red around Naruto, but the gaze of her Byakugan is cold and empty whenever she sees him. It is chilling but expected, considering what he has done to her cousin, Neji. And Shikamaru led the mission to bring Sasuke back when he was a freshly minted Chunin. Sasuke doubts he will ever forgive Sasuke for how he hurt the people Shikamaru loves that night.

They are both standing outside the office; Hinata is chatting softly with Harada Kazuo, Kakashi's executive assistant. The lights of the outer office reflected against the inky black of her hair, and she is wearing the ANBU uniform, a blank white mask hanging on her hips. ANBU doesn't allow for first-year recruits to wear animal masks; recruits have to earn it. Shikamaru, leaning against a wall with his hair oddly matted and flat with a deer mask hanging on his hip, is staring at him, eyes dark and lips thin. Sasuke lets it all wash over him. Orochimaru had tried for years to find a way to break his spirit, to grind Sasuke's bones under his heels using a dizzying array of psychological tactics. But he never made Sasuke feel as small as he does now, with two of his Academy classmates staring at him with apparent anger in their gaze.

"You can come in. We're ready for you."

Hinata turns to face him, a blank stare on her face, one cheek covered in a molten purple bruise, and nodded. He left the door open for them to walk through and spoke quietly to Kazuo.

"Have they received any medical attention since they got back?"

Kazuo only grimaced in response, and Sasuke nodded.

"Set up an appointment for them at the hospital, if you can."

Kazuo made a note, "Do you mean Konoha Central Hospital or the Yama-"

"KCH, Kazuo. Sakura will want to do their check-up herself."

With that taken care of, Sasuke slips back inside the office, walking into what seems to be an argument.

"I know what I saw," Hinata insists, straight-backed and uncharacteristically firm.

Shikamaru stood next to her, arms at his sides and hands twitching at random intervals. It seems that Shikamaru has picked up Sarutobi Asuma's smoking habits already, Sasuke thinks with a small measure of amusement and disgust.

"We were meticulous in our confirmation. It's why it took us so long to get back from a simple recon mission," Shikamaru added.

Sasuke crossed the room, back to Kakashi's side. He is tense, arms crossed over his chest in one of the more transparent expressions of anger Sasuke has seen from Kakashi. He would bet money that if anyone touched Kakashi right now, they would get shocked by lightning. It had happened before. Kakashi glances at him, writes something on the edge of his briefing docs, and slides it over to him. Sasuke squinted to make out Kakashi's scrawl and blanched at the contents.

_Rainfall over Ame is conducting chakra, Hinata and Shikamaru think that it can spy on people._

Fuck.

This would mess up their entire intelligence operation, and it was hard enough getting people to go to Ame when all of Rain Country seemed to sit in KIB's blind spots. Now, they would have to find a way to get agents inside Ame while somehow avoiding all-seeing rain. What the hell is this bullshit anyway.

"What is the range of the rain cover?" he asked, mind racing, interrupting a tense exchange between Hinata and Danzo, who looked over at him with an unmistakable scowl.

Shikamaru's gaze flickered over to him, dark and heavy. "A mile radius outside of Ame is the furthest we could see. The entire village is trapped under it, so that explains why no information gets out of the damn place."

A thought passed through Sasuke's mind, and he raises his eyebrows at Hinata, "Can you explain how you could tell because right now I'm assuming it was the Byakugan."

"Yes. When we went to scout out the area around Ame, I activated my Byakugan and saw what I would describe as some sort of chakra fog all around Ame. I couldn't understand why it was there until we doubled back to make camp. It was the rain itself," her hands gestured to the room, almost imploringly. Hinata, however much she has changed, was still somewhat shy, especially around her superiors. And Sasuke assumed that she hadn't thought she would be briefing the Hokage-Elect himself on this, but she was holding herself up well in the room.

"We checked once again, and about a week into our mission, it started raining over our camp, and I used my Byakugan, and that rain was fine. It was normal. We tested more sites but got similar results. It's not all over Rain Country. It's just around the village itself."

Sasuke tilted his head; _how would someone infuse their chakra into rain in the first place?_ It would require an incredible mastery over nature chakra or massive chakra reserves.

"You saw chakra in the rain, but how do you know that someone can use it to monitor people?" asked a man on the sofa.

Just as old and weathered as Danzo, he seemed more at ease in the room, just a little less hostile. Homura Mitokado, a Councilman like Danzo and one of the favored advisors to the late Sandaime. The older woman sitting next to him was Koharu Utatane, recognizable by the pearls hanging off her hairpin, another one of the Sandaime's advisors, and the first female legislator in Konoha, though a staunch conservative herself. It seemed the legislature had sent the old war hawks to Kakashi.

"Well, what else would it be for?" he asked, looking at the councilor blankly.

Honestly, what the hell were the council members doing in this meeting anyway? Hinata looked at him, surprised; mouth parted slightly. He gave her the smallest of nods. Her eyes widened.

"We already know that Akatsuki has control over Ame-"

"What?" yelps Shikamaru. Hinata's hands cover her mouth and ensuing gasp.

Kakashi waves at them, impatient. "That's old news, and you'll get a briefing on it later. Sasuke, continue."

"Akatsuki has control over Ame, Ame also happens to be a black hole as far as intelligence is concerned, so they must have ways to regulate the flow of information out the village. If the chakra rainfalls were meant to harm people, then the villagers themselves would be hurt. That would be counterproductive to the Akatsuki having the manpower they need and the villagers' goods and services. They need to sustain themselves somehow, and dead people can't really work, so the only reasonable explanation is what they pointed out already."

"Alright, everyone," began Kakashi. He stood up, and everyone in the room rose with him, "councilors, you'll get updates in your daily briefings through the Joint Intelligence Committee is being briefed as we speak, and they will obviously get the full reports. I thank you for your input."

Danzo looks ready to complain about the dismissal, but Kakashi ignores him with a worrying amount of familiarity.

"Shikamaru and Hinata, you'll be working with KIB to figure out how to put people on the ground in Ame with this whole rain situation. Sasuke will set you up."

Sasuke swallowed the sudden lump in his throat; he avoided Shikamaru's s gaze and instead focused on the clear cut of Kakashi standing next to him, steering the room quickly and efficiently towards action.

"Meanwhile, give the Jounin and ANBU Commander your full briefing about your time in Rain Country. Let's get ahead of this, alright."

It was as much of a warning as it was an order. People began filing out of the room.

"Thank you, Mr. Hokage-Elect."

"Thank you, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Hokage-Elect."

Hinata and Shikamaru didn't look at Sasuke again, and suddenly it was only Sasuke and Kakashi standing.

Kakashi turned to him, "So what did you think?"

Sasuke blinked away thoughts of the cut of Kakashi's cheekbones and the way he looked with his hands in his pockets.

"The meeting?" he asked and then winced.

Kakashi raised his brow, "Unless you were focusing on other things," he drawled. Lazy and amused, the slow drip of honey from his mouth.

Sasuke wondered what Kakashi would do if Sasuke said he had been thinking about him, that he was always thinking about Kakashi. "It wasn't as much of a meeting as it was a quick debrief and an argument."

Kakashi only sighed in agreement, "I really can't think with all of them arguing, it wasn't productive for anyone."

Sasuke shifted in place, rocking back on his heels for a second, "I'm not sure if I'm the best point person for Hinata and Shikamaru. We obviously have history," he added, partly quiet and partly ashamed.

This was the worst of it, he thought. Having to bring up his past in front of Kakashi, the one person who had made no move to acknowledge what Sasuke had done. Not even to reprimand him. Some days the silence seemed like a blessing, but on days like these, all the unspoken words lingering between him and Kakashi threatened to drown him under rough waters. Sasuke glanced at Kakashi, searching for a reaction.

Kakashi was so still in front of him, Sasuke couldn't tell if he was even breathing. The ever-bright light of the sun painted the room and Kakashi in shades of silver and gold. If Sasuke reached out with his hands, he could cup Kakashi's jaw, could trace the curve of his ear, peeking out from his mask, could ask him what he thought of Sasuke, if Kakashi thought of Sasuke at all. Kakashi pushed him to the wild edges of his own mind, a pendulum of emotions swinging back and forth in the dark.

His heart hammered in his chest, his fragile control of the Mangekyo slipping until the world bled red at the edges and every individual strand of Kakashi's hair, and all the shades of gray and blue that seemed to haunt his eye was burned into Sasuke's mind.

Kakashi tipped his head back, rolling his shoulder to get the kinks out, and Sasuke knew Kakashi was wondering how to respond to him. Delicate in a way their conversations never used to be before Sasuke left for Oto. But all he could think about was pressing his lips to Kakashi's Adam's apple, tracing his nose along Kakashi's neck, breathing in the scent of ozone and morning dew, making himself home in the hollows of Kakashi's throat. Sasuke wondered what would happen if he did, how much he could get away with before Kakashi pushed him back. He felt unmoored, in the one place in Konoha where he couldn't afford to be.

"I think that you three are all going to learn how to work with each other professionally. For one thing, you don't have any other options, and people are going to have to get used to being at KIB, Sasuke." Kakashi tilted his head, "What have people been saying to you?"

"Not much," he shrugged in response. Sasuke didn't want to complain to Kakashi of all people.

"Obviously, some people are pissed, and I've been having a hard time getting people to go to Ame." The agent who told Sasuke to fuck off to his missing-nin friends in Oto for help came to mind. "But I expected that, and my team has been pretty good," for the most part, Sasuke's relationship with Akira was still up in the air. "And I have Naruto and Sakura."

Kakashi nodded, digging his hands deeper in his pockets, and Sasuke's lips twitched to hold back his smile. The fact that Kakashi was worried enough to ask, that he cared enough about Sasuke to ask the question, meant everything to him. Giddiness bloomed in his chest, warmed him to the tips of his fingers. His hands twitched at his sides. There is an ache of hunger in him; all the flowers in his chest do not feed him.

Kakashi glanced to the window, "I've heard some interesting things about your team."

"Yeah," starts Sasuke, "how did you all get Touya out of retirement anyway?"

"Ino asked him," Kakashi looks at him, amusement dancing in his eye. "Well, when I say ask," he trails off, and Sasuke can't help a soft chuckle escaping him.

"Of course, she did," he says, looking down at his feet, shaking his head. Sasuke can imagine Ino going up to Touya and demanding that he work with them and badgering the decorated war veteran. "She amazes me sometimes." Very few people would believe in Sasuke as unequivocally as Ino did when she hired him, and Sasuke owes her whatever thanks he can give.

"Does she?" Kakashi asks eyes narrowed, his chakra spreads across the room, and the flare is so subtle, but Sasuke learned how to wield lightning from the same man that stands in front of him now. He knows this chakra. He looks up at Kakashi and almost immediately shoots down the urge to take a step back. Kakashi is unexpectedly close to him. Sun-bathed, light-footed, so close that Sasuke can see the shadows that white eyelashes cast on the pale triangle of exposed skin of Kakashi's face. Kakashi stands in his memories, a juxtaposition of lights and dark. He is the air in Sasuke's lungs and everything that makes him breathless. Lightning that sears him to the bone but somehow doesn't hurt. Or maybe it does. And maybe the part of Sasuke that forgot how to tell the difference between things that are good for him from the bad when he left for Oto is as strong as ever.

"She knows what she's doing," he says instead, trying to at least mentally distance himself from Kakashi and circle his thoughts back to Ino. Kakashi steps away from him, blinking as if he's remembering something, and starts rifling through the papers on his desk.

"I heard the two of you were close."

Sasuke thinks about Ino blazing a trail for him at KIB, calling his phone at odd hours in the night, babbling about the latest intelligence caches that had shown up on her desk. Ino, sending flowers to Sasuke's bare-bones office because she thinks the place could use brightening up. Ino, reeling in Akira during her worst moments, shutting down any conversations at KIB about Sasuke's past betrayal. Letting him staff the Hokage-Elect even though he isn't qualified to do so. Putting her trust in his hands and never regretting it. She calls him every morning; her voice is part of his life. Ino is his team and his friend. They are close, Sasuke realizes.

"I guess we are," he says, inwardly surprised, truth dawning in the late morning light.

Kakashi stops moving, staring ahead at a wall, not looking at Sasuke, completely still before he relaxed.

"So, the rumors I hear about you," he begins leadingly.

"What rumors?"

"That you and Ino have been seeing each other outside of work..." Kakashi trails off, staring at a spot next to Sasuke.

"What," he chokes out, open-mouthed in his shock. " _No_ , what the actual hell, we're just friends," he denies vehemently, hands coming up in his defense.

Kakashi blinks at him, a little wide-eyed himself at Sasuke's, quite frankly, overly aggressive refusal. Sasuke should stop there, because this is just Kakashi, awkwardly but earnestly asking after Sasuke and his life, but he doesn't.

Instead, he blurts out, "Anyway, I prefer men."

Silence.

Kakashi's lips parts behind his mask, his eyes wide with surprise. Sasuke's heart thumps painfully in his chests, beating so fast he can't even feel it. Sasuke licks his lips, a completely involuntary action that has Kakashi's eye flickering. He is reminded, abruptly, of the strange look in Kakashi's eye last night, standing in Sasuke's bedroom, staring at messy sheets on a bed. There's no meaning behind it, he reminds himself, and there isn't anything to be found in Kakashi's gaze, not for Sasuke at least. The only sound Sasuke can hear is his own breathing; he can feel the heat rising to his cheeks, cresting his cheekbones.

"Ah," replies Kakashi, clearing his throat for what may be the most awkward conversation in their entire time knowing each other, when there is a sharp knock on the door.

They both turn to the door, and he takes a step back, putting some much-needed distance between him and Kakashi. Kazuo walks through the door, pale underneath his skin, something off-kilter in his walk.

"You're both needed in the situation room," Kazuo glances at them, voice hoarse.

Kakashi leans forward, hands in his pockets, eyes narrowed at his assistant's strange behavior.

Kazuo takes a breath, steeling himself, "The Mizukage is missing and presumed dead."

Sasuke's heart falters in his chest. "Akatsuki," he breathes out, but Kazuo shakes his head, face grim.

"No, there's been a coup in Kiri."

***

When Sasuke met Kakashi for the first time, twelve years old, sitting in the classroom he had spent the last year in preparing to be a proper shinobi; he thought Kakashi's eyes were black. They were dark, reflecting Kakashi's mood more than anything else. Kakashi's emotions burned behind his eyes. The resentment in having to leave ANBU to take a genin team that he did not ask for, anger for having to teach the last loyal Uchiha how to use a Sharingan, despair hunching his shoulders when he looked at Naruto, his teacher's son. Except, when Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura had scampered on to the Academy roof, Kakashi's eyes were a dark grey, a strange color that he would never see in a civilian. Storm clouds were brewing in his gaze, and Sasuke would swear on his life that he heard the distant rolling of thunder in the clear horizon of Konoha's skyline.

Later Sasuke would find that Kakashi's eyes changed to reflect his mood. While in Wave Country during their first, and frankly disastrous, C rank mission. Kakashi watched Naruto and Sasuke fail miserably at tree walking while Sakura mastered it during her first attempt, a sweeping silver gaze had lit up his irises, Kakashi's cipher of a smile twitching behind his mask. When Kakashi used the Chidori, his eyes would blaze a blue so hot he looked deadly cold, his entire body exuding white Hatake chakra sparking off him. Kakashi's Mangekyo bleeds red, and it washes over everything and everyone like a heatwave in the middle of a Fire Country Summer. It is a privilege for Sasuke to know this. To know all the shades of blue-grey that make Hatake Kakashi who he is. To have a bloodline that could perfectly recall the kaleidoscope of Kakashi's irises no matter how far Sasuke strayed from home.

As Sasuke and Kakashi hurtle through the complicated maze of hallways, doors, and tunnels that link the Hokage Tower, ANBU HQ, and KIB to the situation room, Kakashi's eyes grow dark. His Mangekyo eye is open, and Sasuke knows that this is a threat more than anything else. The Sharingan has always been an elevated dojutsu in the shinobi world. It comes from a clan that stood with the Senju and created the world's first Hidden Village and stood for its defense for generations until Itachi killed all but one of them. After the killing of his family, the Sharingan became almost revered in equal parts for its power and its rarity. It is a bedtime story whispered into the ears of small children, and all legends make their roots in reality, no matter how high their branches climb, no matter how twisted these branches become.

"What do you know about Yagura," asks Kakashi, pulling Sasuke from his thoughts.

He can see the sealed doors leading to the situation room in the line of sight, people flooding in and out through the metal doors, seals flickering with how often they are activated. This isn't a question Sasuke wants to answer, but the world doesn't exist to comfort him, so he answers Kakashi regardless.

"Enough to know that if he is missing, then Terumi Mei probably took over and that she has been planning this coup for a damn long time," he looks over at Kakashi when they are a step away from the sealed doors and leans in close. Hoping to avoid eavesdroppers, with his lips almost brushing Kakashi's ear, he whispers, "We met a couple of years ago."

Kakashi shakes his head as they step into the situation room, "Of course you did. Of course, you somehow met the future Mizukage while-"

"Sir."

Both Kakashi and Sasuke snap their heads up as everyone stands to attention. Shikaku nods at Sasuke. Tsunade stands at the head of the table; arms crossed, blond hair was thrown over one shoulder, her amber-brown eyes boring into them with a heavyweight.

Sasuke steps away. "Ma'am," salutes Kakashi, Sasuke hastily mimicking the gesture.

Tsunade nods in greeting; mouth pinched with stress before turning to the rest of the room.

"What do we know so far?"

"Ma'am," begins Shikaku, "We got reports that there was a situation in Kiri from KIB, the Mizukage' s private guard had gone dark in all their internal communications about three hours ago, and then about an hour later, Terumi Mei, the ANBU Commander," he explains, glancing over at Sasuke who nods in response, "made an announcement that the Mizukage was missing at according to the line of succession she would be taking over."

"Of course, she did," snorts Kakashi. "Where is the Kiri ambassador?"

"Gone," says Tsunade, a wry look on her face. "They were recalled back to Kiri for an urgent family problem about two weeks ago."

Sasuke isn't the only one in the room that curses at that.

"Who are they saying took him?" he asks.

Mei can't kill Yagura without having a new jinchuriki ready, and that usually takes time, with Naruto being the most prominent exception. She wouldn't be able to accuse the Akatsuki of stealing Yagura, a jinchuriki; it would create mass chaos, she undoubtedly has Yagura in a cell somewhere, but it's not like she can admit to it. So, Mei needs someone to blame.

A familiar voice pipes up from the back, "The Freedom Guard, a rebel group in Kiri."

Naruto glances over at Sasuke, giving a quick nod. Sasuke dips his chin in acknowledgment, mind racing. Just two minutes ago, Naruto would have seen Sasuke whispering in Kakashi's ear as they walked through the doors. Naruto would have seen the way their shoulders brushed, the way Sasuke couldn't keep his eyes off Kakashi, his lips almost touching Kakashi's ear. Was it necessary for him to have been that close? Sasuke can't remember, but Naruto won't think so.

"Nobody who knows anything about Kiri would believe that," remarks Kakashi.

Shikaku snorted in agreement as Naruto steps forward like light breaching the shadows of the room. "No, the civilians seem to be waiting to see how this goes."

A thought comes to mind, and Sasuke looks over at Kakashi, he already knowing what's going through Kakashi's mind.

"And what about the shinobi population?" he asks. Kakashi's gaze flits to him, and Sasuke wonders if the Kakashi's eyes are just a shade lighter when they rest on him or if it's all in his head, a mistake made due to the dimmed lights of the situation room and Sasuke's feelings.

It is Tsunade who answers, "They aren't doing anything; we can't get into touch with anyone either."

She seems curiously blank-faced, but her back is rigidly straight, and her arms lay at her sides now, hands clenched into fists. She looks like Sakura, Sasuke realizes with a start. Or more accurately, Sakura looks like Tsunade.

"Of course not," repeats Kakashi, rubbing a hand over his face, already tired. "So, who is the new Mizukage?" he asks, shooting Sasuke a side-eye.

Naruto turns to their former teacher, "Terumi Mei, she's the Kiri ANBU Commander, or at least she was before taking the hat."

Sasuke exhales sharply.

He was right.

Mei had gotten the hat after all.

***

Sasuke was the second son, the shrine-keeper, the spiritual heir of the Uchiha Clan. He had obligations to his faith to keep, regardless of the kind of person he had become. The type of person who would betray Hokage and village. The type of person that punched lightning through his teammate's chest and left with a traitor that whispered promises of power into his ears. So Sasuke governed himself with laws that went beyond the natural world, laws so ancient that they flowed through his veins like blood and swept through his lungs like air. It was in every breath he took, every prayer he whispered, every dream he dreamt. His faith wasn't something to keep for the weekends; it was to be lived.

"I can't go in, Karin," he said, gesturing wildly behind him.

"What do you mean you can't go in?"

"I can't go in."

"Why?"

"I don't drink," he said. "So, I can't go into a bar, Karin."

Karin looked at him, aghast. "Do you understand," she began, speaking in a slow, condescending tone, "that we aren't on vacation. We are on a training mission, given to us by Orochimaru, and you need to know how to do this."

"But I can't," he said, equally as condescending, stomach squirming at the thought of entering a bar.

"Just because you don't like drinking-"

"It's not that," he interrupts.

Frustration is evident on his face. Karin raises a singular eyebrow, waiting impatiently. The people around the bar were giving them a wide berth, and some men were shooting Sasuke a sympathetic look, for what he wondered.

"I am the last carrier of my faith. I can't drink because of that, and I really shouldn't be in a place where I have to. I can't do it."

He really couldn't. There was no way in hell any of the Kiri shinobi in the bar wouldn't clock him as an infiltrator the second they saw how uncomfortable he was surrounded by people drinking. This was Kiri; getting drunk was one of the few avenues shinobi had to let loose and escape the oppressive hellscape that was Yagura's reign. Sasuke and Karin were both fifteen, and Orochimaru had decided that it was high time that Sasuke was sent on an infiltration mission outside of Rice Country. Karin had far more experience than most when it came to infiltrating foreign villages; absolutely no one had explained to Sasuke why and was sent to train him while on the mission. Their objective was to integrate themselves into the shinobi population for about six months to a year and convince local shinobi with reasonably high-security clearances to funnel information to Oto. It was easier in Kiri than just about any other Hidden Village since the entire country had been destabilized thanks to the Bloodline Purge and Yagura's reign, not to mention his father's. Except none of that was going to happen since one of the best places to get information was a bar called the 8th Swordsman, and Sasuke couldn't go inside.

"You kids alright?" They both turned to see a tall woman with red hair tied in a topknot staring at them, on hand on a cocked hip, her silhouette against a hustling market of Kiri's lower quarters was strangely stark. She was wealthy, considering the deep blue dress she was wrapped in. She was beautiful the way Senju Tsunade was beautiful. All curves, heavy gaze, and compressed rage at the hand she had been dealt with in life. Her lips weren't cracked, her eyes weren't bloodshot, her nails neatly trimmed and clean in a district that constantly operated under a level of grime, sweat, and blood.

"Well," the woman demanded, narrowing strange green eyes at the pair standing in front of her.

It's how Sasuke always think of Mei. Standing in front of a dirty pub, wrapped in a blue like the ocean around them, chakra a liquid heat in her jade eyes.

***

"We have to close our embassy in Kiri," argues Kakashi.

He stands in Tsunade's office, arms crossed, eyes dark.

"Sir," begins Sasuke, a little helpless that he has to argue against Kakashi now of all times. "If we close our embassy, we are essentially abandoning the citizens of Kiri from all outside help. The country is already a blood bath, and we don't know how the dust will settle with the new-"

"We damn well know how this is going to go," Kakashi snaps back. He runs his hands through unruly silver hair in frustration. His head tipped back in frustration and his arrogance. "The Mizukage starts another war in Kiri because the civilians want guarantees that she won't like Yagura. She staged the damn coup, so I highly doubt she's going to be different, and our people at the embassy are trapped in another bloodline purge with no way out. We have to close the embassy."

Naruto scowls at Kakashi, emotions wild on his face. "If there is another bloodline purge, we should stop it. We can't be the type of village that just leaves as soon as trouble starts."

"We can't be the type of village that puts the lives of foreign citizens above its own," says Tsunade, which is a reasonable point, even if Sasuke doesn't see why they can't do both.

But everyone is missing some key information here.

"I don't think there will be a bloodline purge," he remarks, tone mild.

He glances at Shikaku leaning against a nearby wall, who gives him a wry grin and a look that says, do you really want to be involved in this? Sasuke didn't really expect to be the voice of reason in the room, but Kakashi, Tsunade, and Naruto are all known for their tempers and bullheaded nature, but here he is. Naruto looks at him, something sharp and fragmented in his eyes.

"They've done it before."

Tsunade closes her eyes in the face of Naruto's statement. Naruto is the last Uzumaki left in Konoha for a reason. All the rest fell to Kiri's armada decades ago. And Yagura had purged the entire island of any bloodline limits long ago.

Except, Sasuke knew that wasn't true. He clears his throat, "Mei has a bloodline limit, the lava release, so I don't think she is going to start another purge."

You could hear a pin drop in the wake of it all. Shikaku raises his eyes heavenward.

"And how," Shikaku mutters, "do you know that."

"I've met her before," Sasuke confesses.

Tsunade looks at him; her blond hair falls gently over her forehead, almost obscuring her seal. She is still, sitting straight-backed in her chair, letting Kakashi argue his point, holding court with them all. But her chakra is dangerous terrain. Sasuke doesn't think that anyone else has noticed. He is strangely sensitive; his own bloodline limit changes his relationships with chakra sensitivity. He vaguely remembers that he probably shouldn't even talk about his time as a missing-nin without a lawyer. He definitely shouldn't talk about his time as a missing-nin in front of the Hokage, the Hokage-Elect, and the Jounin Commander when he doesn't even talk about it in his own home.

"You met the new Mizukage," says Tsunade slowly, "while you were a missing-nin in Oto." She narrows her eyes on him. "Where exactly did you meet her?"

Sasuke holds Tsunade's gaze; there is so much that Konoha doesn't know about Orochimaru and Oto. There is so much the world does not know about how a Shadow Village works. It is inherently a transitional stage in the process of creating a Hidden Village. It is when Kage's create trade routes, information networks, sending out their spies, building alliances. When territories are defined, and maps are remade. It is the original reason why Ino hired him. He had traveled enough to know the actual terrain of their world instead of hearing and interpreting rumors being passed down through shoddy intel. Sasuke spent half of his time at KIB making notes on outdated maps alongside Touya.

"I was in Kiri for a little while," almost half a year, "and we got to know each other a little bit." Mei had been like a sister to him, and looking back, she had probably known that Sasuke was in love with Kakashi before he did. Sasuke would smile if it didn't give him away. He's not lying as much as he is omitting certain truths. Knowing that Mei starts rambling on about her dream wedding while drunk isn't going to help anyone figure out how to deal with the coup that she's been planning, and he owes her more than he can ever repay. Sasuke won't out her for anything.

"From my interactions with her, I can confidently say that she's been planning this for a while now. She's a survivor of the Kiri Academy Exam." A horror story told to the rest of the world, for a time, Kiri's final exam was a fight to the death. Zabuza wasn't an outlier in Kiri; he was sadly the norm. "She has a bloodline limit and survived the purge and lived in its aftermath. She's a good friend of Zabuza, who was a missing-nin that died a little over five years ago."

Kakashi hummed under his breath, and a shadow seems to fall over Naruto's face. Sasuke doubts that the blond has ever forgotten Haku's sacrifice for Zabuza; he doubts that Naruto ever forgets the lives lost on their first C-rank mission.

"She obviously set herself up as ANBU Commander so that she could legitimize herself, but I was in Kiri when she was recruiting people for this exact coup, I guess." Sasuke huffs under his breathing, just a little bit charmed by Mei's brilliance, by her patience, by the quiet revolution that lurked in her eyes every time she smiled.

Naruto cocks his head at him, "Stop admiring the woman who just overthrew a government, Sasuke," he barks.

Shikaku snorts a laugh, shaking his head at the two of them.

"Agent Uchiha, do you think we can work with the new Mizukage?" asks Shikaku.

"Yes," he replies, firm in his convictions.

"Hold on," Kakashi interrupts. "We still have to close the embassy."

"But why?"

Tsunade stands from her seat, "Because this is still a coup. Don't forget that the previous Mizukage is still missing, Naruto. Which makes no sense seeing as a Jinchuriki can't go missing and not be declared a traitor," she hisses, clearly frustrated. "Any thoughts, Sasuke?"

He nods at her, "In my opinion, I think it's because of the Akatsuki. If she kills Yagura, she has to create containment procedures for the three-tails, leaving them vulnerable. She'll need to find another host, and Kiri doesn't have a good track record with jinchuriki."

Naruto snorted in acknowledgment; one of Kiri's jinchuriki' s was a missing-nin after all. "If she says that Yagura is missing, it also gives her cover not to kill him. The citizens of Kiri are going to come for Yagura and the previous administration pretty soon for his reign of terror, so if he's missing, it gives the Mizukage time to figure out what to do with him."

He turns to Kakashi. "I know you're concerned about our people at the embassy, but the last time we shut them down, we turned our backs on the entire village and people suffered under Yagura and his father." He falters at what he needs to say but pushes through. "And you forget something."

"What's that?" asked Kakashi, crossing his arms.

Sasuke looked at him, his Sharingan flickering to life for just a moment at the onslaught of memories. What most people didn't know about the Sharingan is that it worked retroactively as well. When Sasuke had activated his clan's bloodline for the first time, he had spent months afterward reliving all his memories in startling clarity. It was a blessing to remember the crinkles of his Father's eyes when he thought he would eventually forget them. It was a blessing to remember his grandfather's hands holding his when they made their way to the Naka Shrine for his daily lessons. It was a blessing to remember his Aunty Kimiko teaching him to cook on the days his mother was too busy with her obligation as the Uchiha matriarch. To remember the exact shade of Uncle Takeshi's nails on any given day of the week. To remember his sister cousin Fumiko's eyes, an amber so different from any other Uchiha. It was a curse and his greatest burden to remember Itachi and his sword that night. To remember the slick sound of blood against metal, his mother gasping for breath and begging for mercy. To remember waking up almost a week later in Konoha Central Hospital with the agonizing realization that everyone, everyone, was gone.

When Sasuke was nine years old, he had started learning about his other clan members' pasts. It was part of his duty, as the second son, to know the clan's past and present and preserve it for future generations. He had met Aunty Kimiko for the first time then too. Unlike most of the clan's shinobi, Uchiha Kimiko had spent a significant amount of her time as a diplomat instead of on the battlefield. She had initially been retired to the village, and an injury early in the Third World War prevented her from going back to the field. She worked at KIB before Sasuke had been born. During the last years of the Third World War, she had worked with Namikaze Minato and Yamamoto Touya in crafting peace. For a period of time, she had been Konoha's Ambassador to Kiri, and the mist of the islands clung to her dreams. She had been forced to leave Kiri when Yagura started his Bloodline Purge, and the grief and shame of having to leave her post at the embassy under duress had followed her home.

"Sasuke?" He blinked away the memories to Naruto with a gentle hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of his memories. The rest of the room was staring at him unabashedly, the heat of his Sharingan blanketing Tsunade's office. He had missed Kakashi stepping closer, almost hovering near him and Naruto. Sasuke draws himself together, letting his Sharingan die out.

"The point is that these embassy officials have been continuously undermined when it comes to Kiri foreign policy, and I think that if we asked them to leave, most of them wouldn't want to."

"While that may be true," begins Kakashi, "they could still be in danger, and it's my responsibility to keep them safe."

"It's my responsibility to keep them safe," interrupts Tsunade, half amused, half annoyed.

Kakashi straightens immediately, "Of course, ma'am, it's your call at the end of the day. But it would be remiss of me not to think through the potential harm of our men and women serving abroad."

"Of course," repeats Tsunade, the dark honey of her eyes land heavy on Kakashi with a slow assessing gaze.

There is a strange tension in the room between Kakashi and Tsunade, and Sasuke doesn't want to be fly trapped in honey. Naruto glances at him from the corner of his eye, fidgeting slightly, head tilted just so in a silent question. Sasuke's lips press together in a line, and Shikaku clears his throat, looking at everyone.

"Well, we'll discuss this more at a later date, but for now, we should regroup after lunch," Shikaku glances over at Sasuke and Naruto.

A clear dismissal from a commanding officer. Sasuke spares one more glance at Kakashi, who has hands deceptively lax at his sides and watches Tsunade warily before Naruto steers him out of the room.

***

They walk through the Hokage Tower in silence.

"So, what was that?"

Naruto hums at his side, tightens his hand around Sasuke's elbow, and ducks closer. "Wait until we're out," he murmurs.

Right thumb over his left palm.

If Naruto, who might as well have grown up in the Hokage Tower with the Sandaime, doesn't feel comfortable talking about what happened in the Hokage's office, then it's more serious than he thought. Kakashi became the Hokage Elect by Jounin vote when Sasuke was still in prison; there had been an increased amount of scrutiny on Sasuke when it happened. He had seen Kakashi on screen, making his vows with Naruto and Sakura standing behind him, both wearing their Jounin uniforms for once, proud to see Kakashi and stand by him. Sasuke had ached with loss that day, knowing that he had lost any right to stand with his teammates and ashamed that Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi had been harassed in the media for comments about Sasuke.

"How do you feel about Uchiha Sasuke' s return?"

"Will you stand by him for the trial?"

"What are your thoughts on the potential plea bargain being offered to him?"

"Do you think he should remain in prison?"

"What's it like to watch your teacher get elected and not have him by your side?"

And on and on and on _andonandonandonadon._

But it had been gratifying and strange to see his lazy, porn reading, perpetually masked sensei be named the Hokage-Elect. Something in his soul had eased to see the village that he had abandoned embrace Kakashi so readily. Something in his soul had shaken with the knowledge that standing in Konoha prison, staring at the tiny screen in the prison lounge, he was the farthest from Kakashi he had ever been. He didn't want anything to break the illusion he had constructed around Kakashi's life that he was happy without Sasuke because that could be the only way to forgive Kakashi for not visiting him while imprisoned. After all, knowing that Kakashi was happy without him was the only way for Sasuke to distance his feelings for Kakashi from his lackluster relationship with him.

They step out into the glaring afternoon, Konoha baking in an early summer sun that made Sasuke squint his eyes and wrinkle his nose in disgust, skin prickling from the heat already. The entire street is dotted with security for the Hokage Tower; tourists wandered through administrative buildings with wide-eyed wonder. Sasuke could see shinobi in uniforms weaving expertly between civilians in business suits on cell phones. He could make out a small huddle of Academy students with a Chunin Sensei gathered near the Tower entrance.

"We need to find Sakura," he says. "To talk about what happened," Naruto adds.

Sasuke blinks and puts a hand to cover his eyes from the sun and looks at Naruto, who grimaces at him. Of course, Sakura would know her mentor's apparent problem with Kakashi.

Here's what Sasuke finds out in the course of an hour-long conversation with Sakura and Naruto:

  1. Kakashi refused the position as Hokage-Elect when Tsunade initially proposed that he nominate himself. This did not go over well.
  2. Kakashi eventually agreed, but he has thus far refused the trappings of office. He doesn't have a traditional security detail, which enrages Tsunade to no end. It also explains why Kakashi doesn't come in with full detail on his clandestine visits to Sasuke's house. Sasuke had assumed that Kakashi was running away from them.
  3. Tensions have been escalating steadily for the past year or so between the two shinobi, and Sakura believes that everything will come to a tipping point sooner or later. Based on the scene in Tsunade's office, it's going to be sooner rather than later.
  4. Sakura isn't eating.



"So, what are we supposed to do about it," he asks, wary for any answer they might give.

"Nothing apparently," grumbles Naruto, stacking empty plastic ramen cups to throw away. "Sakura doesn't think we should interfere."

Sasuke turns to Sakura because his two teammates have decided to use him as a buffer for any potential arguments. And arguing and banter is an essential part of Sakura and Naruto's friendship.

Sakura scowls and him and crosses her arms across her chest, leaning away from the two do them. "It's not our business to get between our two commanding officers, the two highest-ranked shinobi in the entire village, and tell them to fix their non-existent relationships. It's entirely inappropriate of us to do this." Sasuke wonders what this is, besides sitting in a very public hospital cafeteria gossiping about their former teacher.

"No, it's not," argues Naruto, blue eyes blazing. "Tsunade is your mentor, and she's one of the few remaining relatives I have left."

Sasuke had forgotten that Tsunade was related to the Uzumaki, his hands come together in contemplation, his right hand holding his left, right thumb against his left palm as a point of grounding.

"Kakashi is our teacher, too."

"He was our teacher," Sakura corrects neatly. Wiping her mouth despite the fact she has barely taken a bite of food. "None of us stayed under his tutelage for more than a couple of months."

Naruto scoffs in affront and leans forward on his elbows, a challenge in his eyes. "Yeah, but you never call him anything other than sensei when we're all together."

Sakura narrows her eyes at him and sneers; her mouth painted a pretty shade of glittering pink. It looks like a slash against her face. "Don't give me that. You don't call Jiraiya sensei even though you traveled with him for three years. It's not about the title. And it's not like we see him on a casual basis anymore either. He's barely spoken to us since he became the Hokage-Elect."

Sasuke thinks over her statement; it's not entirely true after all.

"We do see him on a casual basis, though."

Naruto and Sakura turn to him.

"Guys," he begins, exasperated. "He crashed into my house last night. And yeah, I was the only one awake, but he knew you two were there."

"That's weird though, even for him," says Sakura.

"I told you this already, though, this morning," he clarifies. "And he and I spoke at the Naka River a couple of months ago."

Naruto looks mystified, "About what?" Sasuke looks at him appraisingly, and Sakura sighs in frustration.

"About me avoiding him."

"You were avoiding him?"

"Naruto," begins Sakura, "Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei were playing cat and mouse whenever they saw each other." Sakura huffs under her breath, a faraway look in her eye. "They kept running into each other in the Tower mission desk, and the Hokage-Elect has no goddamn business at the C rank mission desk. It was obvious he was there for Sasuke."

"I didn't notice at all." Naruto looks at him wide-eyed. "Kakashi-sensei spoke to you about you-," he grimaces, "oh sage, that's awkward, considering..." He waves a hand in Sasuke's general direction.

"Thanks, Naruto," he quips. He is exasperated by Naruto's general awkwardness about his crush but also hopelessly fond of his acceptance.

"But it is interesting," Sakura starts, "that Kakashi has been visiting you so often-"

"It's not that often," he interrupts.

He doesn't want to examine Kakashi's visits more closely. Between the dead of night and the rising dawn, those moments were for him and Kakashi only. And if Kakashi makes it a point to only visit Sasuke when no one else in the house is awake, then it was a mistake to mention it to Naruto and Sakura at all.

"But I don't see him at all, and I've been working at the Tower for a while now," she points out. Strands of pink hair cling to the corner of her mouth, and she blows them away in an exhale. Everything about her is pink, from her glossed-up lips to her hair to her strappy heels tucked underneath her chair as she rests her bare feet on the hospital cafeteria floors. Her toenails are painted pink, he muses.

His gaze flickers to her sandwich, still uneaten. "Are you going to eat that," he asks, curious to what her response will be.

"Oh, do you want it?" She pushes it towards him, and he pushes it back.

"No, I was asking, why you aren't eating?" he clarifies.

Sakura's green eyes seem to crystalize in front of him, her hard edges becoming sharper under the cafeteria lighting. The other hospital employees' hustle and bustle seem to fade into the background as they stare at each other.

"I'm not hungry."

"Bullshit," he whispers, "you're hungrier than anyone else I know."

And it's true.

Sasuke never realized it when they met, but Sakura hungers for everything she was told she could never have. Sakura is picture perfect on most days because she was raised by civilian parents who expected their daughter to be pretty, and feminine, and perfect. But her eyes have too many dark corners, her jaw a little too sharp, her chakra too precise, and her rage too close to the surface for the civilian parent's comfort. She wasn't ever supposed to become a shinobi, much less a Jounin medical practitioner; she wasn't supposed to have a fast-tracked career in the Tower under the Godaime Hokage herself. A mentor that the civilian population respect as a shinobi but never as a woman. Sakura craves attention. She hungers for the limelight. She watches food in a way that only civilian women who are always told to contain themselves do. Her soul is as unshakeable as a mountain; she is a calamity to whoever wishes her harm. She would swallow the world whole if she could. She is always, always, hungry.

"Are you fighting with your parents?" he asks.

Her mouth tightens, and he exhales in response. Naruto has matched them breath for breath, and Sasuke once again brings his hands together.

Right thumb against his left palm.

Sakura closes her eyes and tips her head back, eyes moving beneath fragile pale skin. When Naruto and Sakura dragged Sakura away from her office for lunch, they had sequestered themselves in a corner table next to the windows so that no one could eavesdrop on their conversation. It is a facade of privacy, but it is enough for Sakura to start talking.

"They brought up marriage," she says, quiet and imperceptibly trembling in her seat. Naruto reaches out and threads their hands together, her pink nails leaving white marks on Naruto's darker skin. Her bangs hang over her eyes, which Sasuke supposes is one way for her to hide her tears, of rage more than anything else. Right thumb against the left palm.

"They said that I need to get married and that they want to introduce me to the son of an old friend of my dad, and I freaked out on them, which just made everything worse," she whispered, scrubbing her free hand over her face.

Naruto starts sputtering, "They can't force you to get married. That's insane."

He looks at Sasuke and Sakura, who grimaces.

"They can't force me to get married," Sakura says gently, and it just kills Sasuke that she can still comfort the both of them in a moment like this. "But they can make my life very, very difficult as long as I'm saying no. They don't understand why I'm saying no, and apparently, just not wanting to isn't enough of a reason. They don't believe me."

"What the fuck," Sasuke mutters. There is a strange squeezing sensation in his chest; he idly remembers the last time he had a panic attack in front of Sakura, in the privacy of his bedroom. The thing is, Sasuke knows what Sakura is going through right now. If his family had been alive, Sasuke would be going through the same thing. His parents had been arranged to marry each other by his mother's grandmother, nanu. Itachi had already been engaged when he had killed the clan. It was what they did. They were old clans that believed that marriage was a family obligation instead of a romantic notion. In the back of his mind, in the depths of his guilt, he is relieved that he will never face that pressure. And Sasuke hates himself for it, the idea that anything could be better after his family is gone because nothing is. But this conversation isn't about him anymore.

"Are they kicking you out," he asks.

"No," says Sakura, straightening up in her seat, eyes glittering with tears, "I told them that I would leave, and I don't think they believed me, but I went to work today," her voice broke over her words. "and I don't know how to go back to a house that doesn't value my choice, I don't want to do that." Tears are dripping down her face, and she keeps trying to blink them away.

"You don't have to," he says hoarsely. "You can move in with me."

"Okay," she gasps.

Sakura places her head down on the table and grabbed his hand underneath the table, squeezing hard, a wet sob escaped her mouth.

"Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me."

Sasuke feels sick. How can her parents do this to her? How could they reduce Sakura to this state, where she couldn't even show her tears to her genin teammates.

"You never have to thank us for this, Sakura," Naruto chimes. "We're always here for you."

"I didn't bring any of my stuff with me," she whispered. Sakura's pink hair flares out around her. the back of her neck exposed in the cafeteria. "I had to get to work, and I was running late."

Sasuke distantly remembers that he and Naruto had given themselves an hour for lunch to explain to Sasuke why Kakashi and Tsunade were angry at each other. There was a coup in Kiri, and Sasuke's past was coming to reckon with him with Mei in power. He had to spend the day with his former teacher and current crush, who was the next Hokage, and dismantle an international terrorist organization hellbent on kidnapping and killing his best friend. But his other best friend was crying in front of him, and Sasuke would never again disregard Sakura's pain for his comfort ever again.

"Okay, we need a plan," he says.

Sakura finally lifts her head from the table, eyes red, nose runny, and her hair sticking to her red face. He turns to Naruto instead, who is looking at him with a sort of determination he rarely sees outside of a fight. It is a commitment to get this done, complete the mission, and protect your precious people no matter what it takes. And Naruto's eyes, more than anything else, remind Sasuke that they can pull this off.

"You're going to take Sakura to my house and get her to eat lunch." He turns to Sakura, "you need to eat."

She opens her mouth to interrupt him, but he ignores her. Sakura won't eat until they get her to a safe place, to remind her that she still has a home to go to, a place to eat and sleep in. A place where warm light filters through the windows and friends gather to remind her that she is stronger than what her parents want her to be.

"I'm going back to the tower to let people know that we are going to take a couple of days off."

"You can't do that," Sakura exclaims, alarmed. "You're working with Ino to dismantle the Akatsuki, and it's too important to-"

Naruto interrupts her, "You are important too, you know."

"And we need to tell Kakashi," Sasuke finishes.

Sakura's mouth drops open, "No, we don't. This isn't his business."

"Why can't it be his business?" Naruto questions.

Sasuke stops them both before they get into it again, "Sakura, a couple of months ago, you told me we had an opportunity to be a real team, the four of us."

She looks absolutely venomous at Sasuke throwing her own words back at her. "And you told me that we needed to talk to each other about our lives, and this is the same thing."

"I was talking about Orochimaru and Oto, not my potential marriage!"

"It's the same principle," he counters. "And you have to know that Kakashi would never betray your confidence in this, he would never do that to you, and neither would Tsunade."

"I'm not ready to tell Tsunade," Sakura whispers, chin trembling, "I am not ready to do that."

"Then we can wait, but let Sasuke tell Kakashi and let them handle your parents."

It figures that Naruto already knows Sasuke's plan without him having to say it out loud. Kakashi is Sakura's sensei, even if she's having trouble saying it, despite all her talk about becoming a real team now that Sasuke had come back. Kakashi had instilled in them a sense of loyalty to each other that would bind them till the end of their days. Sasuke may not know who to talk to Kakashi about himself, but he can do this for Sakura, and having the Hokage-Elect on their side would be helpful regardless of the circumstances.

***

Kakashi is back in his office, and he glances up sharply at Sasuke when he walks in. Shikaku and Touya are with him, which is a relief; he had assumed that Touya would be with Ino all-day briefing the Joint Intelligence Committee. So Touya being back early could be either very good or bad depending on what happened in the legislature's secure briefing room, just a stone's throw from the Tower. Kakashi narrows his eyes at Sasuke.

"Finally decided to come back, then."

Sasuke could comment on how Kakashi has never been on time to meet with him the entire time they've known each other, but he doesn't think now is the time.

"Mr. Hokage-Elect, may I speak with you privately? It's a personal matter."

Kakashi raises a single eyebrow but gestures at Touya and Shikaku regardless, "I need the room, gentlemen," all the while staring at Sasuke.

As soon as the door closes behind Shikaku and Touya, Sasuke walks over to Kakashi's side.

"Sakura's in trouble."

A shudder raced up his spine as the room lights up with Kakashi's chakra. The crashing thunder of Kakashi, the dark storm of his eyes, the heat of lightning buzzing under Sasuke's skin.

"Explain."

A command, not a question.

Sasuke probably should have prefaced the conversation by saying Sakura wasn't in any immediate danger.

"She had a fight with her parents about marriage, and they were trying to set her up with the son of a friend, and they kept saying no, and they didn't want to understand her, so she left for work, and she doesn't feel okay to go back, ever," he clarifies.

This doesn't calm Kakashi down as much as it hones his anger toward two specific people.

"Where is she now?"

"I asked Naruto to take her to my house and give her lunch, and she wasn't eating at lunch today."

"She already has a room there, doesn't she?"

"You were in my house last night. You know she does."

Silence.

There were dust motes in the air and the tick of the wall clock growing louder in the quiet. Sasuke shakily exhales as Kakashi just stares at him, mouth parted under his mask. Twice now, he had made the same mistake; twice now, he had brought up Kakashi's late-night visits when he shouldn't have. The visits felt intimate, like parts of Sasuke and Kakashi that could only exist when everyone else in the village was sleeping, could meet each other in a home broke and remade for people broken and remade. Sasuke had built his home with Sakura's hands in his, with Naruto's voice babbling in his ears, with Kakashi's chakra in his soul. Naruto's pop art on his living room walls, a strange contrast to the ancient wall hangings dragons and the deep blue sea that Sasuke dug up from the clan storage. Sakura had bookshelves put into the house; she had found them in the art district and had been the one to initially hire the genin teams for a long-term renovation assignment for the Uchiha District. They had filled his home with the recipe books the clan women kept in their kitchens. Sakura had watched him plant the golden leaf trees for his parents, and Naruto had waited outside the Naka Shrine while he polished his family's urns. And everywhere in his house, there were parts of Kakashi.

The pug shaped clock in his living room.

The eggplants he had begun planting in his garden, next to his favored cherry tomatoes.

The miso in his kitchen, despite it being so different from anything Sasuke had grown up eating.

The hummingbird beat of his heart, the heat of his dreams, the infinite horizon of Kakashi on his mind. Kakashi's name on his lips.

"I assumed you meant a guest room that she uses," says Kakashi. He's not looking at him. Why won't he look at Sasuke?

"She and Naruto have rooms there...so do you." Kakashi's eye widened, and Sasuke could hear the crick in his neck as Kakashi turned to look at him once again.

Right thumb against his left palm.

It was such an obvious tell, and Kakashi had known him since he was a teenager.

"Or technically, you will," he started babbling. "The second floor of my house is still not finished, so everyone's on the ground floor right now. But we're trying to put a bookshelf in, but Naruto and Sakura keep arguing about the paint color for the walls, and I want it done before we buy the furniture, so I may just choose a color myself. The genins we hired are working hard, and I think they just have to redo the bathroom, and the rest is just buying furniture and painting the last couple of rooms," he trailed off. Staring at Kakashi staring at him. "Sakura," he blurted out. Kakashi nodded almost frantically.

"Yes, we need to do something about her parents."

"Not without her permission. I'm thinking we go over to their house and just get all of Sakura's stuff that she'll need. Her social security, birth certificate, her hitae-tae." He let Kakashi absorb his babbling and nod in agreement. Kakashi got up and walked over to Sasuke.

"We're taking the rest of the day, I assume?"

"Naruto and I were thinking a couple of days, but I know you can't take days off anymore."

"I can at least spare time for this. She should know that."

"I know Kakashi," he murmured, hands twitching at his sides.

People are watching them walk out of the Tower. They pass by the Shinobi A-rank mission desk, and the dozen or so people in the room all stand to attention, crisp uniforms and salutes, eyes staring right at them. Kakashi puts a hand on the small of Sasuke's back to steer him away from prying eyes. The slight touch burns him and soothes him all at once. His mouth is dry, and heat prickles at the back of his neck. Kakashi leads him through a maze of narrow corridors with tight corners and hardly anyone except for the Hokage guards. They duck into a stairwell that Sasuke would bet money doesn't exist on any of the Tower's blueprints, public or private.

"Do you even know where Sakura's parents live?"

"I visited them once," Kakashi answers, sounding aggrieved.

Sakura's parents are people you don't want to see more than once in Sasuke's experience, so Kakashi's reluctance is understandable.

"Do you want to tell me where we are," Sasuke asks instead.

He's starting to wonder if he should be allowed to know about the apparent maze of secret passages under the Hokage Tower, the security around them is giving Sasuke alarmed looks as it is. Kakashi has him dangerously close to his person, and Sasuke feels like he can hardly breathe. Kakashi opens the door to a burst of sunshine and foliage.

"Senju Hashirama created a set of secret passages leading to the forest from the Tower in the event he needed to get away from the public unseen. I believe that it was most frequently used for clandestine meetings of a..." Kakashi trails off, looking at him. He blinks and drops his hands to back his sides, leaving Sasuke cold.

"What kind of meetings?" Kakashi coughs a little and waves a hand at him, "We should head to Sakura's house, to get her things and talk with the parents."

"What kind of meetings?" he repeats.

Sasuke couldn't imagine why the Shodaime Hokage felt the need to create a secret maze of tunnels leading from the Tower to the forest, Sasuke wanted to know why. There was so little known about the first Hokage after all, but Kakashi was already taking to the trees. He sighed but jumped after him anyway, and it wouldn't be the first time Kakashi avoided giving even the most basic information when asked a question he didn't want to answer. And he doubted it would be the last time either.

The forest was familiar to him, at least. These were the trees that lined the Naka River banks, where he first learned to swim. He had learned to climb trees with Shisui, glancing back down at the ground where Shisui waited readily to catch him if he fell. It was how Sasuke knew he was safe, with Shisui's outstretched arms waiting for him. Here was where Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura had run wild during their village training days. The sound of their laughs lost among the foliage, Naruto's golden hair wild in the wind, the white flash of his broad smile burned into Sasuke's memories. Kakashi had chased them through the forests, training disguised as a game of tags. Or maybe the opposite, given how adverse Sasuke had been to enjoying his time with his teammates. They could never see Kakashi coming until he was right next to them, a flash of silver in the corner of Sasuke's eyes. 

He chases Kakashi through the trees now, ducking and weaving between thick branches, his hands coming up to touch each tree as he lands on a branch, to feel the rough bark on one tree. To feel the soft moss on another, to pluck flowers as some sort of souvenir, or a trophy more suited for a child than the man he has become. Kakashi was enjoying himself, Sasuke could see when the straight-backed Hokage-Elect melted away to Kakashi, the constantly slouching lazy Jounin who enjoyed reading questionable literature in public and ducked out of workdays to help out his former genin students. This is how Sasuke wants to love Kakashi. Like their lazy summer runs through the forest, forever captured in amber and Sharingan, tree bark and honey.


	4. Going on hiatus

Hi y’all! I keep doing this to you but it’s important for me to set expectations.

I really like this fic and this pairing but I need to do this story justice and that takes planning. I also have ideas for like five other fics that I really want to do. So I’m going to take a couple months, I will be on tumblr at terryberryferry if you want to see how I’m doing and get snippets of what I am working on, or just scream about life with me. I’ll talk about writing and process and just random stuff that interests me.

So I’ll check in with you guys in a couple months but rest assured I love this fic it is not going to be abandoned, I have tons of ideas for it, I just need a little less pressure and I keep thinking about you guys when I’m writing and it feel alike I have to put myself on deadlines I can’t meet. So I’m putting a stop to my own guilt issues and doing something for me. See you in a little bit! 🥰


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